Dr Sharan Patil & Sparsh Hospital
This post is to thank Dr Sharan Patil and his team in Sparsh Hospital for the long and successful operation of Laxmi Tatma on November 6, 2007.
Lakshmi Tatama is an Indian girl born in 2005 in a village in Araria district, Bihar, having "4 arms and 4 legs." She was actually one of a pair of ischiopagus conjoined twins where one twin was headless due to its head atrophying and chest underdeveloping in the womb. The result looked like one child with four arms and four legs.
Dr. Patil traveled to Bihar in September 2007 to bring Lakshmi Tatma for treatment at Sparsh Hospitalin Bangalore.
Lakshmi Tatma went for surgery on November 6, 2007. This marathon surgery lead by Dr. Sharan Patil constituted a large team of doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and which included the famous paediatric anesthetist Dr. Yohannan John. The operation lasted 19 hours and resulted in the successful separation of the parasitic twin from the body of Lakshmi Tatma.
The parasitic twin's spine and abdomen merged with Lakshmi's body. The twins' backbones were joined end-to-end and nerves were entangled. Lakshmi could not crawl normally or walk, but she could drag herself around somewhat. Doctors surmised early on that without the operation, she would not be able to live into her teens. The surgery began on Tuesday, 6 November 2007, at 7 am IST (1:30 AM UTC), and was planned to last 40 hours at the most. An estimated cost of over USD$625,000 was paid entirely by the hospital's charitable wing Sparsh Foundation. A team of more than 30 surgeons worked in shifts. The surgery lasted for 19 hours. The doctors gave Lakshmi a 75-80% chance of survival during the surgery.
The steps of the operation were:
1. (8 hours): Abdominal operation: remove the parasite's abdominal organs.
2. Remove the autosite's necrotic kidney and replace it with the parasite's kidney. Tie off the blood vessels that supplied the parasite.
3. Move the reproductive system and the urinary bladder into the autosite.
4. (6 to 8 hours) Amputate the parasite's legs: this caused heavy bleeding. Cut the joined backbone: the nervous system around the join was found to be extremely chaotic, and care had to be taken to avoid causing paralysis.
5. Separation, at 12.30 am on 7 November 2007. The combined pelvic ring was divided through or near the parasite's hip joints and not at the pubic symphyses. The remaining incomplete pelvic ring was cut and bent to make the ends meet, and not left as an open part-circle.
6. External fixation to hold the parts of the pelvis in place. This caused the pelvis to close in 3 weeks to the normal position.
7. (4 hours): Suturing. Operation completed at 10 am on 7 November 2007.
After the operation, the camera showed the amputated parasite and its legs laid out so that for a while they looked like a separate human form.
Lakshmi's recovery so far has been swift and satisfactory. Within a week after the surgery, the doctors held a press conference showing Lakshmi being carried by her father. Her feet were still bandaged. She was in the hospital for a month after the operation.
Afterwards, she and her family moved to Sucheta Kriplani Shiksha Niketan in Jodhpur in Rajasthan, where Lakshmi joined a school for disabled children and her father got a job on that school's farm.
As of February, 2008, a later operation is planned to bring her legs closer together. Another operation may be needed to rebuild pelvic floor muscles.
The last view of her in the television program showed her making an effort to walk, with her thighs fastened together with a spacer to keep her pelvic ring in place while it heals, and casts on her shins and legs.
This was the first time that surgery of this magnitude was conducted in India. Definitely Dr. Patil and his team has not only given Laxmi a new life, but proved the credibility of Indian medical system and competence of Indian doctors in front of the world.
Dr Sharan Patil and Sparsh Hospital
Dr. Sharan Shivraj Patil was born in the district of Raichur in the state of Karnataka, India. His early education took place in Gulbarga at Sharana Basaveshwara Samsthana. In 1979, he moved to Bangalore and attended premedical school training at the MES College Bangalore.
Sharan Patil completed his medical school with an academic distinction from M. R. Medical College Gulbarga, followed by a brief stint at St. Martha's Hospital in Bangalore. He followed it with a post-graduate degree at Kasturba Medical College Manipal and graduated with a diploma in orthopaedics in 1990. In 1991 he graduated with a master of science in orthopaedics and was awarded with a Gold medal.
In 1992, Sharan Patil moved to the United Kingdom for further training in the North West of England. His training included the Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Royal Liverpool University Hospital Hope Hospital, Manchester and Warrington District General Hospital. In December 1995, he was bestowed with Mch. Ortho from Liverpool University.
Sharan Patil returned to India in 1996 and joined Manipal Hospital in Bangalore. He later decided to bring high-quality medical care to poorer citizens, resulting in the birth of Sparsh Hospital.
Under Sharan Patil's stewardship, within 16 months, over 3000 major surgeries were performed on the lower-middle and middle class strata of society at Manipal Hospital. Patil's philosophy of providing quality healthcare to the common man without compromise to all earned him accolades from his compatriots and is the driving force for the establishment of Sparsh Hospital. His goal is to dispense top quality health care for all, irrespective of financial status or their race or class in society.
There have been various initiatives taken up by the hospital, including:
• A project called "Resuscitation by Right" for accident victims.
• Sparsh Neighborhood care scheme.
• Regular arthritis camps, disability camps and yashasvini camps, which help make joint replacement surgery affordable.
• Video-linked ambulance service..
• Patil partnered with the Government of Tamil Nadu to establish a primary resuscitation centre on [National Highway 7] at Hosur.
• Instrumental in setting up of Sparsh foundation where in everyone irrespective of economic status. caste, creed, religion or placement in society is accorded quality treatment.
• Club foot eradication program.
Sparsh Foundation
Dr. Sharan Patil with the encouragement, love and affection received from well-wishers and recipients came out with a novel concept to further commit him and Sparsh hospital to take up social causes through medical science which will benefit the society at large. Hence his brainchild to help the poor and needy pioneered the charitable wing of Sparsh Hospital now known as the Sparsh Foundation. The basic philosophy is to get quality treatment to the poor and the treatment has to be on par to that which is accorded to the rich the difference being the poor do not have to pay for the surgery. This philosophy along with the cooperation of his friend the chief Anesthetist Dr. Yohannan John became the hall mark in his philanthropy to give the touch of life and to inspire everyone