Eight hours of agony for PM

Sandeep kumar , Hardnews

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is undergoing a complex heart redo bypass surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi premises on Saturday. The 11-member operation team is led by Dr Ramakant Panda, a redo bypass surgery specialist from Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai.

"The prime minister was wheeled into the operation theatre at 5.30 am and the operation finally began at 7.15 am. The operation is expected to last eight hours," Dr Sudhir Vaishnav, cardio-vascular thoracic surgeon with the ASI, Mumbai, told PTI.

PM had three arteries blocked as shown in the test reports which included the two grafts done during the bypass surgery done in1990. PM had a similar bypass surgery operation in UK involving grafting of arteries of veins in 1990. He further had an angioplasty done after 14 years at Escorts in 2004.

The redo bypass surgery is a very major complex operation and requires a lot of expertise. It is quite risky as it involves the repetition of all surgical procedures. The success of the operation depends mainly on three factors including those of patient health, type of surgery being conducted and the expertise of the team handling the operation. The PM is lucky to have the operation done by Dr Panda, who has a healthy experience of conducting 700 redo bypass surgery. His team includes the Dr Vijay D'Silva, anesthetic Dr Narendra Garach from ASI, Mumbai and paramedical staff from AIIMS.

Meanwhile, PM is going to miss this year Republic Day parade as he will have to stay in the hospital for another seven days. Since Manmohan Singh is diabetic the recovery period is expected to extend. The PM can resume work only after a period of two- three weeks. Meanwhile, External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee is performing the protocol duties in the prime minister's absence. According to the "the standing order" during the PM absence or unavailability Cabinet Committees on Political affairs (CCPA), headed by senior most minister looks after the PM duties. The CCPA team consists of P Chidambaram, AK Anthony, Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and TR Baalu.