Mending Little Hearts With Love!
Known for its compassion for the poor and underprivileged sections of the society, Bangalore’s HBS Hospital now has a brand new Centre for Cardiac Surgery, where world class doctors work on heart surgeries for children and adults with loads of care!
Heard of unconditional love, unconditional compassion and unconditional charity? To witness it in practice, just walk into HBS Hospital on Cockburn Road, Bangalore, and up to the second floor! Lo Behold! Neat and tidy stands the brand new Centre for Cardiac Surgery, which opened its doors to the public on February 1st, 2019. This centre, equipped with a state-of-the-art operation theatre, a four-bedded ICU, a team of superbly-trained nursing staff and doctors who are the crème de la crème from the medical fraternity, is the first such Muslim community-owned centre that has been set up on a not-for-profit principle.
Dr Tameem Ahmed, the ever-smiling chief cardiac surgeon and Director of the Centre for Cardiac Surgery, is an alumni of AIIMS, New Delhi, having completed his MCH there, and MS from PGI, Chandigarh. Dr Tameem is among the very few rare doctors who are experts in performing cardiac surgeries on both children and adults. While peeping into the hearts of the rich and the famous during his career in various reputed hospitals in India, his own heart was beating for the poor. This triggered off the idea of contributing his skills and efforts to set up a place for cardiac surgery for the poorer sections of the society.
As a cardiac surgeon handling complicated heart diseases, Dr. Tameem discovered that there was a long line of kids waiting for cardiac surgeries. The poorer among these simply could not afford to cover the cost of the surgery, that was around Rs 3 to 5 lakhs. That was at the back of his mind. By God’s grace, after talks with Dr Taha Mateen, CEO of the HBS Hospital, he helped set up the Centre, which has a team of doctors comprising Dr Arun Reddy, from AIIMS, Dr Ashwini Bansal, also from AIIMS, Dr Suresh from JIPMER, Dr Thabit, Dr Hidayath and a paediatric cardiologist Dr Priyadarshini.
‘The need of cardiac surgery for the poor and the deprived is huge in India, and the waiting list for patients who cannot afford it is never ending. For example, the diagnosed cases of heart diseases in children in India is approximately 60,000 per year and around 10,000 surgeries are performed. A bigger challenge is to get qualified trained personnel to provide their expertise to these sections of society. The Centre for Cardiac Surgery in HBS Hospital is an effort to provide the best treatment to even the most underprivileged sections of the society. The Centre can handle by-pass surgeries, valvular heart surgeries, minimal invasive surgeries and complex congenital heart diseases for children and adults. The Centre welcomes economically-poor people, and anybody and everybody who needs cardiac surgeries across India and across the world’, explains Dr Tameem.
The brightly-lit Centre for Cardiac Surgery at HBS Hospital gives out positive vibrations to visitors. The secret behind this is the unconditional charity contributions on which the Centre has been built. Dr Taha Mateen, CEO of HBS Hospital says that it was the khulus (purity) that went into the funds that came in for this Centre. Donors did not want any of their names to be flashed around, and they simply made their offerings for the sake of God. There were no strings attached to any donations that flowed in. It was the prayers and sheer goodwill of hundreds of patients and other well-wishers and the pure money that helped the Centre see the light of the day. Dr. Mateen says that the Centre wants to relieve the misery of specially the poor, and if children come in here with need for surgeries, it would never send anyone back because they have no money for it. The price point for heart surgeries for children is Rs. 1 lakh, but if the patient or the family has nothing, they would do their best to raise the funds for them. Whatever the patient can afford is fine, and the Hospital would try to cover the rest through fund raising. Dr. Mateen says that he is amazed at the kind of charity alliance the Muslim community can build if the intention to do good is there. God arranges all things through His mighty Grace.
A visit to the Centre for Cardiac Surgery will remind you about the good old fairy tales with happy endings”¦a compassionate team of golden-hearted doctors led by
Dr Tameem, somewhat like the kind elfs in Enid Blyton stories, stitching up little and big broken hearts in some magical-looking operation theatre. Kids and grown -ups are sure to live ‘happily ever after’!
Do drop in at the Centre for Cardiac Surgery to share about things that may be bothering your heart with Dr. Tameem and his team. You will not only learn lots about the clinical side of heart diseases, but also the spiritual side of charity!
Dr Tameem can be reached at [email protected] Ph: 9591967280
(Reported by Nigar and Yogi)
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