Mumbai: JJ Hospital’s cardiology department is looking at a fresh start after performing a costly heart procedure on a patient entirely free of out-of-pocket expenses. The department now wants to create a dedicated team to be able to do this procedure frequently.The patient was a 63-year-old man from Jalna who suffered from severe symptomatic aortic valve stenosis along with coronary artery disease. Doctors decided he was the right fit for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI), instead of open heart surgery as he also had a past history of multiple heart procedures.Every month, a few patients like him are the ideal candidates for TAVI. However, until now, they could not access it because the state insurance scheme, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Jan Arogya Yojana (MJPJAY), had a cap of Rs 5 lakh, whereas the procedure costs between Rs 12 and Rs 15 lakh.To bridge this gap, the state government recently created a special corpus fund under MJPJAY. It now covers TAVI and eight other life-saving treatments, such as transplants, which can cost up to four times the scheme’s usual cap“We could earlier accommodate one or two patients every month through the CM relief fund or social worker department. Relatives would also have to arrange for funds,” said Dr Samkit Mutha, assistant professor, cardiology at JJ Hospital.Department head of department Dr Kalyan Munde said the lack of funds meant patients would be referred to the surgical team for an open-heart procedure. He said the annual number of TAVI procedures at JJ Hospital could now be 50 to 60 as cost would no longer be a barrier. “We will have a dedicated team for TAVI, these cases will be handled by them,” Dr Munde said.
