The Hindu : 87-year-old U.S. man operated here

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 12, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

87-year-old U.S. man operated here

By Saptarshi Bhattacharya

CHENNAI APRIL. 11. Cardio-thoracic surgeons at the Madras Medical Mission have successfully replaced the mitral valve in an 87-year-old U.S. citizen on whom doctors of that country refused to operate owing to his age and complications arising out of previous surgeries.

Brennan Bernard Emerson, a Canadian-born design engineer residing at South Bend, Indiana, was fitted with a bio-prosthetic valve.

The surgery was performed on him on March 14 by a team of doctors led by K.M. Cherian, director, Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases, and S. Rajan, senior consultant, Cardiothoracic Surgery, and including Benjamin Ninan, anaesthetist.

He appeared to be at ease when he replied to queries of mediapersons at the hospital today. "Back at the U.S., I cannot pay for this type of surgery. A bypass surgery would cost close to $40,000," he said. During his four weeks' stay at the hospital, he spent $8,000 inclusive of surgery and care.

Doctors in the U.S. paid $100,000 as malpractice insurance, with the premium further increasing for every case of death. The Medicare insurance was also being cut down by the Congress and only 50 per cent of the claims were approved, Mr. Emerson said.

He had a long medical history and was diagnosed for silicosis at the age of 36 when he was working in gold mines in the Rockies. In the 1980s, he underwent right middle pulmonary lobotomy, a severe high-risk coronary artery bypass grafting in 1995, removal of five sternal wires in 1998 and implantation of a permanent pacemaker in 2001.

Mr. Emerson said he contacted the Madras Medical Mission through family friends and the medical technology students from Kerala whose study in the U.S. is funded by him. "Few Americans travel the world. They do not know about anything outside the U.S.," he said. Mr. Emerson's rendezvous with Chennai was not new.

He spent five years here from 1978 as a World Health Organisation consultant for Metrowater water supply and sewerage projects.

This case would provide an ideal platform for the hospital to promote medical tourism, said S. Mullasari Ajit, senior consultant cardiologist. Though the hospital received plenty of patients from African countries, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, poor infrastructure put off a lot of patients from the West.

The hospital had sent a proposal to the United Kingdom Government seeking to treat some of its patients through the National Health Service scheme. In the cardiac care unit, almost all the hospitals in the U.K. had waiting lists that ran close to a year, said Dr. Rajan.

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