Four month old Vidisha is dubbed the “miracle baby” in the Mumbai hospital where she has spent the last two months of her life. The baby was born with a major heart defect that required a 12 hour surgery. Not just that, after the surgery she suffered an overwhelming six heart attacks.
Vidisha was born to Vishaka and Vinod Waghmare- residents of Kalyan. The baby is likely to be discharged from the BJ Wadia Hospital in the next couple of days. The baby’s parents could manage just about Rs. 25,000 for the Rs, 5 lakh hospital bill. The rest was paid by different donors of the hospital.
“When she was 45 days old, Vidisha vomited after I fed her and fell unconscious. We shook her awake, but she again became unconscious,” said Vishaka.
The baby was then rushed to a local nursing home. There, they were advised to take her to the BJ Wadia Hospital. At the hospital, Vidisha was diagnosed with a heart defect called transposition of the great arteries. Thanks to the condition, connections to the aorta and pulmonary artery are switched. “Basically, her heart’s anatomy was opposite of a normal heart,” explained Dr Biswa Panda, paediatric cardiac surgeon of Wadia Hospital. It was Dr Panda who operated her on March 14.
It’s said that her heart function has improved after the surgery. But not so with her weak lungs. “Correction for the transposition of the great arteries should be done immediately after birth. Else, like in Vidisha’s case, the poorly formed lung got used to a certain pattern and couldn’t adjust to the sudden correction,” said Dr Panda.
The oxygen concentration in the baby’s blood used to routinely drop to a third of the normal. “She was in the ICU for 51 days after the surgery, and went into cardiac arrest stage six times due to this imbalance,” said the doctor. The doctor added that the baby’s heart once required 15 minutes to be resuscitated. To stabilize Vidisha’s lungs, the hospital had to use a high-frequency oscillatory ventilator.
“We toiled for three years to get a cardiac surgery department to help underprivileged children with heart disease. It feels good that our objective is being met,” said B J Wadia Hospital CEO Dr Minnie Bodhanwala.
Image credits: health.economictimes.indiatimes.com