Manmohan Singh became the first man to have heart bypass surgery in Guyana when the Caribbean Heart Institute’s (CHI) medical team successfully completed the operation yesterday at the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Richard Evans, who was also scheduled to have the surgery done, will do a triple bypass today since the team got off to a late start yesterday and was unable to do a second operation.

Dr. Gary Stephens, lead cardiovascular surgeon at CHI told Stabroek News last evening that everything went just fine. He said Singh had an off-pump bypass surgery, which means, that his heart was still beating during the operation. The heart-lung machine, which is used in bypass surgeries, was in the operating theatre and the perfusionist was on hand but the machine was not used.

CHI made medical history in Guyana with the medical intervention.

The medical team included skilled surgeons; anaesthesiologists; surgical nurses and experts from the US, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Guyana.