Independence Day gift of life from Indian docs to Pakistani student

Tayyab Niaz is a 20 year old Mechanical Engineering student in Multan.  He had developed a faster than normal heart beat.  He went through a procedure in Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Karachi for radio frequency ablation – which further damaged his heart further as a catheter (small tube) had got stuck inside the heart during the radio frequency ablation and at the time of extraction of this catheter his mitral valve (that controls the blood flow between the upper and lower chamber of the heart) got severely damaged.

He had two options – get his valve repaired or get it replaced.  The doctors in Pakistan could have done the latter but not the former.

Moreover, a change of valve would have been very expensive and would have meant no sports for life and also medication as long as he lived!  He was then referred to India’s Ganga Ram Hospital – a stone throws distance from my house.

A team of 11 doctors went through this tedious and very complex surgery to repair his heart.  It will now require a month long medication and he will be as good as earlier.  The cost of the entire operation: INR 180,000, which his businessman father could afford.  Sujay Shad, who worked in UK until 2005 and has since returned back to India was the Chief Surgeon on this operation.

“We carried out detailed tests and conducted an open heart surgery over a period of 90 minutes Aug 1. He was in a difficult condition and without this treatment he may have died in the near future. This is an Independence Day gift,” Shad said.

Indeed, a nice Independence Day gift from India to Pakistan.