Date:09/06/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/06/09/stories/2005060900961700.htm

Back Iraqi kids operated on at Parumala hospital

Our Bureau

Thiruvananthapuram , June 8

DOCTORS at the St Gregorious Cardiovascular Centre at village Parumala in Pathanamthitta district, part of a telemedicine network of Dr K.M. Cherian's Frontier Lifeline, has successfully carried out open heart surgeries on three Iraqi children.

This is an encore performance from the company founded by eminent cardiac surgeon Dr Cherian. It performed similar surgeries on 20 Iraqi kids at its unit at the International Centre for Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Diseases in Chennai last year.

The surgeries were conducted free of cost and free hospitality was extended to the guardians who accompanied the children with congenital heart defects, a spokesman for Frontier Lifeline said here.

The unit at Parumala is equipped with an emergency cardiac critical care unit with continuous monitoring facilities of the patients, computerised electrocardiogram and treadmill, latest echo with colour Doppler ventilators, blood gas analysers, an intra-aortic balloon pump and six 24-hour acute coronary care beds.

Parumala is connected to other centres of Frontier Lifeline via the telemedicine facility. Using telemedicine, patients are examined, monitored and treated even while being separated from the doctor by a long distance.