NEW DELHI: Even as Indo-Pakistan tensions are a peak over the attack on an Army base at Uri in Kashmir, a Pakistani man has got a fresh lease of life here after undergoing critical surgery to make his kidneys functional again.
Zafar Khan (61), from Peshawar in Pakistan, had had a stent procedure done seven years ago but his kidneys deteriorated badly last year. He was advised a kidney transplant. But tests conducted to determine his medical condition revealed that his heart was weak and functioning only at 15-16 percent of capacity. It was also considered appropriate by doctors to first treat the heart condition and consider the kidney transplant later.
Several visits to multiple hospitals in Pakistan led to no positive outcome as all of them turned Zafar Khan away saying they were not equipped to treat him. He was advised continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) in Pakistan, however, but his sons could not find any healthcare provider ready to take up the challenge. Hence, they decided to bring him to India. Several rounds of visits to five or six hospitals in Delhi did not help much.
Following this, Zafar Khan was brought to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Delhi, where a CRRT implantation procedure was conducted successfully. The CRRT procedure is a dialysis modality used to treat critically ill, hospitalized patients who develop acute kidney injury (AKI).
“Zafar Khan was brought to our hospital in a critical condition. Conducting a CRRT implantation in such patients can be extremely challenging. It required extra precautions and a multi-disciplinary team of nephrologists,” Aparna Jaswal, associate director, electrophysiology, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, who led the team which operated on Zafar Khan said.
Zafar Khan’s son Ibrahim said: “I was dejected when we got repeated refusals from doctors in Pakistan and India. The moment I met Aparna Jaswal and she explained how my father could be treated, I felt I had reached my destination.”
The humanitarian story comes amidst India’s decision to move to diplomatically isolate Pakistan on all international fora as part of a multi-pronged retaliation strategy following the attack on an army base in Uri, in which 18 soldiers were killed.