Highlighting the unexploited potential for collaboration in medical treatment, Indian doctors on Friday provided a helping hand to their Pakistani counterparts in conducting what is being billed as the first-ever Living Donor Liver Transplantation (LDLT) in Pakistan.
Four doctors from New Delhi's Apollo Hospital assisted their counterparts from Lahore's Shaikh Zaid Hospital in transplanting livers from live donors to two persons suffering from complete liver failure, in a complicated procedure that puts at risk both the donor and the recipient.
According to Dawn newspaper, the Indian doctors' help was sought after some British doctors were refused permission to travel to Pakistan by the British government on security considerations. Usually, Pakistanis travel to India for liver transplants, but the costs and procedures involved are phenomenal, especially given the tight visa regime.
This joint surgery was conducted just a day ahead of the first-ever India Show in Lahore, which opened on Saturday. This is the first time in the collective institutional memory of both governments that India has been able to mount a country-specific exhibition in Pakistan.
At least 200 Indian companies are participating in the three-day show that will close in the presence of Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, who will begin his four-day visit to Pakistan on Monday.
Cross-border traffic has seen an incremental increase in recent months, with contacts taking place at various levels and between different categories of people. Last week's Lahore Book Fair had a couple of Indian publishers who evinced interest in publishing some Pakistani authors. And this weekend, there is a significant Indian presence at the Karachi Literature Festival.
