How Rotary saved a Pak boy's life

Saving a life, an act of immeasurable pride and joy, is part of the daily drill for India's world-renowned heart surgeon, Dr Devi Shetty. It is also a routine act for a group of lesser-known mortals, who have achieved world recognition by coming together for a social cause: Rotary. Quite appropriate, that the word rhymes with Devi, as well as Shetty. But this story needs to be told, for a special and higher lesson: That people like Dr Devi Shetty and organizations like Rotary, can work miracles, like bringing two warring nations, India and Pakistan together.

In a dusty and distant village off Abbotbad, the last railhead on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, fourteen-year-old Tauseef Ahmed, son of a driver, was resigned to his fate of waiting for his death. The boy was diagnosed as having a life-threatening heart ailment, and doctors had told his family members that his condition was so bad that he was inoperable. The family also could not afford the high medical bills for the treatment. That is when, Rotary came in to the picture.

A group of Rotarians - from either side of the border - re-wrote a happy script for the boy, and helped wrought a miracle. Rotarian Aziz (district governor) co-ordinated with his counterparts on the Indian side, and the medical cost of the treatment was taken care of by the Rotary Bangalore Health City and the Narayana Hrudayalaya charity wing.

Hope first kindled in the boy's family when the Rotary Club of Chandigarh came forward to get the surgery done in India. Doctors there said the boy's condition was so complicated that only Narayana Hrudalaya could handle the surgery and he was shifted to Bangalore at the behest of Rotarians Raja Saboo, past president, Rotary International, and Dr MK Panduranga Shetty, past Rotary International director.

At Narayana Hrudalaya, Dr Devi Shetty and Dr Shekar Rao concluded that the boy's heart can be restored early to the normal level by using a Homograft. The team performed a successful surgery on Aug 22, requiring total correction using a Pulmonary Valve Homograft and reconstructed the boy's heart who has now returned to Pakistan, hale, hearty and chirpy as ever.

"It's a classic example of how Rotary could succeed in bringing India and Pakistan together, and help a poor boy suffering from a life threatening ailment, and raise the resources needed for the medical treatment, using its vast network," recalls Rajendra Rai, District Governor of Rotary Dist. 3190.

Rotarian Raja Saboo also acknowledged the persistent efforts of Rotary, Delhi, who helped arrange the extension of Visa to the boy and his father, to Bangalore.

The success of the Pakistani boy's case has sparked off a joint effort by Narayana Hrudayalaya and Rotary Foundation and Rotary Bangalore Health City, to set up a Cadaver Tissue Bank at Narayana Hrudayalaya at an approx. cost of Rs 75 lakhs of which Rotary will bear Rs 50.00 lakh and Narayana Hrudayalaya Rs 25 lakh. This Tissue Bank will preserve skin, bones, tissues bone marrow, heart valves etc. of the human body that would be stored and utilized for poor and needy patients free of cost. Patients like Tauseef Ahmed will directly benefit from this project which will get operational in early 2008.
 
Approximately 28 millions babies are born annually in India and one out of one hundred forty has congenital heart disease. That is, approximately 300 to 500 children being born every day with the heart disease. A small percentage of these children who are born with this complex heart disease require an extensive reconstructive operation using artificial conduits and this is not possible without a Homograft lab.