NGO, hospital give baby new lease of life

Eight-month-old Kavya Shinde, who has been suffering from a serious cardiac ailment, will finally get a new lease of life as a hospital and an NGO joined hands to arrange the money for her surgery and further treatment.

Vision Child Foundation has collected '2 lakh for Kavya’s surgery while Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital will pay another Rs 2 lakh required for her treatment. She will be admitted at the hospital on Monday for the surgery.

The infant is suffering from a congenital heart disease, a birth defect that affects the normal functioning of the heart. According to the doctors, she needs to undergo an urgent open-heart surgery followed by intracardiac repair that helps in increasing blood flow to the heart. If not operated upon immediately, Kavya may not survive much longer, the doctors said.

“The treatment that the infant requires is a complicated process that will require Rs 4 lakh including fees from surgery to discharge. Considering her health condition, she requires immediate surgery. Any delay may result in her death. The NGO helping her has been able to provide Rs 2 lakh and the remaining Rs 2 lakh will be compensated by the hospital under the charity quota,” said Yogesh Patil, co-ordinator of the hospital’s charity department.

“Kavya will be admitted on Monday and operated within 2-3 days,” said Mr Patil. “It took us a month to collect the money from our donors. We had also posted advertisements in our website seeking donation for the baby,” said Kumar Abhinav, general manager of Vision Child Foundation. “When the family of the child approached us, we investigated the economic condition of the parents thoroughly and only then did we take up their case,” he added.