AGARTALA: Tripura achieved a milestone in the healthcare sector on its golden jubilee celebration of statehood day on Friday after it successfully conducted the first open-heart surgery in the state-run hospital free of cost under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.
Principal of Agartala Govt Medical College (AGMC) and GBP hospital Prof Manjushree Roy on Saturday said the facilities of cardio thoracic and vascular surgery and interventional radiology (CTVS and IR) were installed in the medical college a while ago, but no surgery was conducted.
Amid the Covid-19 third wave, the hospital authorities took the challenge to fight the odds and performed the first open-heart surgery on a 46-year-old woman, Madhabi Rani Das, said Roy.
According to Roy, Das, a resident of Udaipur in Gomati district, had visited the hospital OPD following a breathing distress a few weeks ago. Doctors diagnosed a major arterial defect in her heart and she was referred to the newly functional cardiac department.
