He bats for cardiac surgery

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South India can be proud of the excellent facilities it has for cardiac care, says Dr Anil Tendulkar, senior cardiac surgeon from Mumbai.

Forty percent of the of 1.2 lakh cardiac surgeries done across India in 2011 — up 10 per cent from 2010 — were performed in the south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, he observed, speaking on the sidelines of the Aortic Summit organised by the Medical Trust Hospital in Kochi on Saturday.

Also, nurses from South India were the best in the country, in his view. He should know, being trainer for nurses both in India and abroad. Dr Tendulkar who has performed over 10,000 surgeries, in a career spanning 34 years, says cardiac surgery today is a very safe option.

“Unlike a cancer surgery where a person can lose a limb, heart surgery can return the patient to a happy normal life.

It has become safer with the arrival of various modern diagnostic and monitoring techniques and well-trained personnel. Now cardiac surgery is successfully performed on a day-old baby and an 80-year-old,” he pointed out.

Of the surgeries performed in 2011, 80,000 were coronary bypasses and 20,000 were for heart valve replacement, according to him.

As many as 12,000 heart surgeries were performed on children.

While heart care facilities may have improved, there’s clearly nothing like prevention and the surgeon warned the younger generation about the perils of using tobacco in any form. “Smoking, being overweight and diabetes provide a deadly cocktail for heart disease,” he said.