Bengaluru has no heart for the poor

Patients with no financial support find the cost of heart transplants at private hospitals prohibitive, and the one government hospital, Jayadeva Institute, has performed zero surgeries till now
The high costs related to a heart transplant procedure and its post-operative care has left impoverished patients with end stage heart failure no option but to go without treatment and bide their time till their heart gives up the ghost.The cost of a heart transplant is at least Rs12 lakh with additional costs for post-operative treatment.
At present, all heart transplants that have been carried out in the state have been done in private hospitals. Out of five hospitals licensed to perform heart transplants, Narayana Health City in Bommasandra and its branch in MS Ramaiah Hospital have done around 24 procedures, Manipal has done one and BGS Global Hospital has performed two procedures.
Patients with no financial support find the costs at private hospitals prohibitive, and the one government hospital, Jayadeva Institute, has performed no surgeries to date.
Jayadeva Institute obtained its license to conduct heart transplants in 2011.
'Expensive matter'
Dr C N Manjunath, director of Jayadeva, said "A heart transplant is an expensive procedure and the cost of transplant is very high. None of the government programmes cover the costs of a heart transplant as part of any insurance scheme. What is more challenging is the post-operative care and medicines, the cost of which could also run into several lakhs, which obviously many cannot afford. " But Dr Manjunath said that they are hoping to do the first transplant by the end of July or August.
Dr P S Seetharam Bhat, senior cardio-thoracic surgeon and the transplant surgeon on the hospital's board said, "It is not a routine procedure. Even if schemes like Vajpayee Arogyashree and Yeshasvini support the treatment, it would be only up to Rs 1-2 lakh. But the rest of the money has to be raised by philanthropists and institutions."
Even though the hospital received its licence in 2011, Dr Bhat says that it still does not have the infrastructure to carry out the procedure, but they are working on it.
While five private hospitals have licences to conduct transplants, three more have applied for the licence. Dr Julius Punnen, senior consultant cardiac surgeon, Narayana Health City, which has carried out the highest number of transplants in the city, says, "The government now insists that the surgeon is trained in transplant procedures.
The surgeon is required to have a multi-degree in transplants and the ability to carry out Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) procedures. Not every hospital can get a transplant license easily."
KERALA MODEL AS AN EXAMPLE
In September 2015, doctors in Kerala performed the first heart transplant surgery in a government hospital at the Medical College Hospital in Kottayam. The cost of the transplant was funded by the state government. The government in Kerala has set up a corpus fund for the initiative taking assistance from corporate houses and other institutions. The medical community has lauded the efforts of the government.