29-Sept: Dr. Dr Vijay Agarwal, Chief Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon & Programme Co-ordinator, Fortis Hospital Mumbai, talks about the advancements and trends in pediatric cardiac surgery today. 

As per him, it is surprising to know that 80-90 percent of heart diseases in children can be cured. It is actually sad that so many children are actually dying for something which can be cured. 

One of the challenges is the lack of awareness- not only from the parents who think that it is a risky operation and cure is not possible but there are financial issues as well. This is because the children are born to young parents who are starting their career and may not be very financially sound.

Pediatric cardiac surgery requires a lot of skill and it also requires a lot of infrastructure. One can do a very good operation but if the infrastructure is not there to support the child in the postoperative care, we will have a bad result and that is something that unfortunately happens in many centres that do not have a proper infrastructure.

Also if you do not have good support staffs that are highly skilled in their job and the infrastructure to support a child who has had a major operation then you will have a bad result in spite of a good operation. So it is extremely important that only few centres in the city be identified and developed who can actually perform these kinds of operations.

Source: ET Health. Read the full interview