Times of India
2 April 2010
By Mehul Jani and Ruturaj Jadav

City opens purse strings, AMC opens doors to help boy with a missing heart valve
Hope has finally been injected into the troubled heart of Chandan Chauhan, the three–year–old boy who suffers from a life–threatening cardiac condition.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on Thursday helped his poor parents obtain a BPL card which would enable them to get the child treated at a public hospital for free.

Surgery can save the Boy
Chandan’s Parents, who can barely afford food, had been desperately trying to obtain the card for the past six months as his survival depended on an expensive heart surgery. Mirror, in fact, reported the boy and his parents’ plight.

The three–year–old – whose father, Suklal, is a watchman at a municipal garden in Maninagar – suffers from a complex congenital heart defect. The right ventricle of his heart has not developed because of a missing valve.

The defect prevents blood from reaching the lungs for purification. It can be corrected with the help of bi–directional Glenn procedure that costs at least Rs 60,000. The boy’s parents would be able to get this surgery done for free with the help of their BPL card.

Chandan’s delighted parents said that they would admit him to UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology & Research Centre on Monday for the surgery. “We have been trying hard to get the card to save our son. We finally got it today,” the boy’s mother, Sita, said. The BPL card is not the only reason for them to look hopeful. Several people, including Mirror readers and Maninagar councillor Dakshesh Mehta, have offered to help the boy get better.

A volunteer group, Jai Ho, has collected money for his medical care, whereas Karamsad Medical College has offered to perform the corrective surgery on him for free.

“We have collected Rs 13,000 for Chandan,” the founder of Jai Ho, Priyank Gandhi, said. Interestingly, it was Gandhi who took Chandan for a medical examination that revealed his heart defect. “I spotted him six months ago. He was quite pale and weak. “I took him for a check–up, and that’s when his condition came to light,” he said. The director of Karamsad Medical College’s cardiology department, Dr Dhiren Dave, said that the institute would offer all possible help to the boy. “If, for some reason, the boy cannot be operated upon at UN Mehta, we will perform the surgery here,” he said.