On May 25, 2020, a team headed jointly by Dr K R Balakrishnan and Dr Suresh Rao of MGM Health Care performed Biventricular Berlin Heart Implantation on Fedrenko Lev, a three-and-a-half-year-old child from Russia. Fedrenko Lev, who had severe cardiomyopathy, underwent the first such surgery—a Biventricular Berlin Heart Implantation—in the entire South East Asia, Middle East, and Africa regions.
The child was referred to MGM Healthcare, Chennai in 2019. He had recurrent heart failure and suffered two cardiac arrests but was revived after administering CPR. The baby was less than 10 kg and the only option was to install two heart pumps and Paediatric Biventricular pumps that are made only in Germany by a company called “Berlin Heart”.
The child’s condition deteriorated in the middle of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The doctors were ready to perform the surgery but the largest obstacle was that the engineers from Berlin were unable to travel directly to the surgical site to physically install the external console. The technical teams at the hospital and of the company in Europe were in constant touch and connected via video conferencing for installing the equipment.
The child was managed with medicines for two months after the complex surgery and he is now steadily healing.
