Hyderabad: Even as the people of India and Pakistan were focussed on a complex open heart surgery conducted by a Bangalore hospital on a two-and-a-half-year old Pakistani girl, another rare operation went relatively unnoticed.

Philippa, an 18-month old girl from Tanzania was born with a complicated congenital heart disease -- two arteries arising from one ventricle, two holes in the heart and narrow arteries supplying blood to lungs.

According to sources, Melanius, mother of Philippa brought her to Hyderabad with 200 per cent double outlet right ventricle, where both aorta and pulmonary artery arise from the right ventricle with no connection to the left ventricle and also two heart defects -- atrial septal defect and ventricular septal defect.

A team of doctors led by K S Murthy, chief of paediatric cardiac surgery at the Apollo Hospital, performed a complex operation to repair the intra ventricular tunnel to divert left ventricular blood to the aorta, close both the defects and enlarge the pulmonary artery.

As in Noor's case, Philippa was brought to India, as doctors in Dar-es-Salaam neither had the expertise nor the facilities to treat such a complicated case.

Murthy, who has so far done about 4,000 paediatric cardiac surgeries, describing the facilities in India said, "Our medical facilities are on a par with those in the West and we offer them at one-tenth the cost in the West without compromising on quality".

Incidentally, Makmi, another Tanzanian and a member of that country’s Parliament, underwent a bypass surgery a few days ago in Apollo Hospital and is still recovering there.

An impressed Makmi, said, "India is a nice country with kind people. The doctors are very good and the facilities here are excellent." He is so impressed with the quality of healthcare that he is inviting the hospital to train doctors of his country.

Agencies