CHENNAI: A one-year-old child from Oman may soon fly back to his home with a smile on his parents’ face, thanks to the doctors team from Apollo Children’s Hospital. The doctors successfully carried out a surgery on Yaseen Essa Salim Saleem al Ruqaishi’s heart and windpipe. “When Yaseen was born, doctors in Oman said that he has two holes in the heart,” said Yaseen’s father. Another hospital they approached told them that the baby had a block in the airway passage and the baby would find it difficult to breathe because of that. Then the doctors in Oman referred the child to Apollo, added Yaseen’s father, who is in the army. Before being shifted to Apollo Hospital here, Yaseen was put on ventilator support for more than two months. Yaseen had a ventricular septial defect (VSD, a defect in the wall between the two ventricles). He also had unclosed hole in the major blood vessel in the heart (aorta). “This is congenital and is quite common in infants. I closed the holes by giving an artificial graft. During the procedure, Yaseen was put on an artificial heart lung machine,” said Dr Neville Solomon, pediatric cardio thoracic surgeon, Apollo Children’s Hospital.
After heart surgery, Dr Rajan Santosham, Thoracic surgeon at the hospital said the baby had a congenital narrow windpipe. Of the 5.4 cm length of the windpipe, 1.7 cm was cut and both the ends were joined together. This will help the baby breathe normally, doctors said. As the baby grows, the windpipe will also grow, they added.