A 34-year-old bank clerk is this week breathing a sigh of relief following a successful kidney operation which was performed on him on Friday.
Gopinauth Rampersaud was yesterday recovering from the operation which was undertaken at the Dr Balwant Singh Hospital on East Street.
The man developed complications in one of his kidneys several months ago and had been seeking treatment at a local hospital, a relative noted.
His younger brother, Kapildeo Rampersaud, 32, stepped in to assist his brother and following several tests, a public/private ar-rangement was put in place, headed by United States-based Guyanese businessman, George Subraj. Dr Rahul Jindal, of the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital in the US, and who has been leading operations of its kind here since 2008, and his team performed the operation.
Both patients were resting comfortably in the hospital’s wards when this newspaper visited them yesterday and Kapildeo noted that he was eager to be discharged since he has almost fully recovered from the operation. According to the hospital, he would be discharged from the medical institution within the next two days.
Speaking to a small gathering on the ground floor of the hospital yesterday, Dr Jindal said that both patients have reacted well to treatment provided by staff at the hospital since the operation. He told the gathering which included Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran, who had been providing moral support to Subraj and his team, that Gopienauth and others who will benefit from similar operations at the local hospital will receive the best medical care.
He added that local physicians have been trained to treat patients recovering from similar operations.
Medicines will be provided to both patients free of cost by the public authorities.
Dr Jindal noted that his team was committed to assisting persons in need of kidney surgery in the future, adding that “it is better to do the operations here than overseas”. He said that “the problem” with overseas treatment was that the patient would return here and may not receive the best post-surgery care since there would not have been any coordination of the treatment the patient should receive between local and overseas physicians.
He noted too that in such cases the patient would have to travel to India for a second time and that it would be costly to do so.
Minister in the Ministry of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran noted yesterday that the operation on the Rampersaud brothers was “an evolution of a private/public partnership”, noting that the Health Ministry would be providing post-patient care to the young men and others who would benefit from similar operations in future.
He said that more patients, some nine in number, were screened by Dr Jindal and his team over the past several days and Subraj told Stabroek News yesterday that the team will return to these shores occasionally within the next several months to undertake similar operations at the private hospital.
Ramsaran also expressed satisfaction to the team and staff of the hospital, adding that a point of importance which many should note is that the “transfer of skill and knowledge to local doctors” is on-going. He noted too that though there were “hiccups” during Friday’s operation, it was important to note that the operation was successful.
Meantime, relatives of the Rampersauds expressed appreciation to the team of physicians and staff of the hospital who participated in carrying out the surgery on Friday. A relative told this newspaper that the family was “nervy” on Friday when the operation was carried out but she noted that relatives “pray and believed” that all would go well.
The Indian born-Dr Jindal had been spearheading the kidney operations at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) from the inception and his team which participated in Friday’s operation included Drs Arthur Womble, Stephen Guy, Alden Doyle and Tara Farley.
The first successful kidney transplant surgery in Guyana was completed at the GPHC in July 2008 when 18-year-old Munesh Mangal was provided with a kidney by his mother Leelkumarie Mangal. In February 2009, 47-year-old Winston George had his surgery successfully completed after receiving a kidney from his daughter Melissa. George is now an assistant coordinator to the visiting medical team in the screening process for potential patients.
In May 2009, Jairaj Singh, a 55-year-old father of four of Diamond, East Bank Demerara (EBD) and 56-year-old Mohammed Shariff, a father of five, of West Coast Berbice (WCB) had kidney transplant operations performed on them at the GPHC. Singh passed away two months later at the public hospital following complications he experienced during his recovery from the operation.
