The center started providing free valves and surgery a month ago under the government´s regular program of free valves for needy children and the old who cannot afford the surgery. [break]
The government has provided Rs 10 million to MCTVC for the service. Four children have already undergone the surgeries.
The beginning of valve replacements at MCTV is good news for patients waiting to undergo surgery at Shahid Gangalal Heart Center (SGHC), which is booked for three years. Gangalal also provides free valve replacement surgery to children less than 15 and adults over 75.
For people who don´t fall in the right age groups, a valve replacement surgery costs about Rs 200,000.
Some patients waiting for surgery at Gangalal have already applied for surgery at MCTVC.
Unfortunately, bookings at MCTVC have occured so rapidly that a new patient will have to wait a year for the service there.
"We have a long list of patients seeking free valves and surgery," said Dr Prakash Sayami, director of MCTVC.
According to Dr Sayami, patients will get free valves apart from diagnosis, medicine and free beds.
But the hospital does not provide free valves and services to patients who can afford the procedure.
The hospital requires a recommendation letter from the Village Development Committee (VDC) concerned to ascertain the patient´s financial status. A social service unit at the hospital is tasked with judging whether a patient is needy.
MCTVC has just one operation theater at present, but there will be three more in another three months.
"After our new operation theaters come into service, we can provide operations every day," Dr Shyami said.
Currently, the hospital conducts five to six surgeries each week.
MCTVC also provides a subsidy of Rs 50,000 to any patient who is poor and needs valve replacement but is older than 15 or younger than 75, Dr Sayami said.
Dr Bhagwan Koirala, who conducts surgeries at the center as well as at Gangalal, said the center will not have a sufficient number of cardiac surgeons when all four operation theaters come into service.
But surgeons are being trained at Gangalal for recruitment by the center, Dr Koirala said. The center also expects cardiac surgeons being training abroad to join its staff.
MCTVC currently has 50 beds, apart from a six-bed surgical Intensive Care Unit and nine-bed Coronary Care Unit.
Related story
TUTH resident docs side with Dr KC
