Pacific International Hospital commenced its next phase of the Operation Open Heart surgeries earlier this week with the arrival of the cardiac team from India.
Interventional Cardiologist, Dr Vineet Shankla in a meet with the media at the 53rd Medical symposium said that in his last two years going back and forth from PNG, he has done close to 150 angiographies and 50 angioplasties.
The PIH medical team telecasted a live broadcast feed of a real time surgery taking place at the hospital on the symposium screen, witnessed by all the participants in the symposium.
Their timely arrival coincided with the 53rd Medical Symposium which kicked off earlier this week in Port Moresby so that the entire medical fraternity could get a firsthand viewing of the program.
The procedures also saw the cardiac team take up a total number of eight cardiac surgery cases each requiring a cardiac by-pass.
The cardiac team consists of four doctors; three doctors and a specialist anaesthetist and lead by interventional cardiologist, Dr Vineet Shankla.
These procedures are done to check the coronary arteries which supply the heart as well as the procedure to remove blocks in the heart.
Dr. Vineet said from what he sees in PNG, there are a lot of rampant coronary heart diseases and heart blocks.
“This is due to some risk factor like poor lifestyle, a lot of tobacco, diabetes, and hyper tension. There are more and more cases here whenever I visit and naturally awareness is needed.”
Following the outlooks stated by Dr Vineet, PIH Chief Executive Officer, Col Sandeep said PIH has managed to reduce its prices down so that the procedures become more affordable to people.
“Some cases which are being treated on at very low cost because of unaffordability and they are in need of that cardiac intervention.”
He said that they had a patient who came with a quotation of K80, 000 for a procedure in the Philippines of which we offer the same treatment at K30, 000.