Saturday, February 12, 2011

Free Hip and Knee Replacement: Operation Walk DMC

Operation Walk Maryland 2011 at DMC, Ludhiana – Forty Six Families Get A New Future

Operation Walk 2011 – a unique and magnanimous philanthropic event at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, India has transformed the lives of forty six people and their families. Under this project free joint replacements have been carried out on poor needy patients by a team of forty five specialists from Operation Walk Maryland, USA. These patients with advanced disabling arthritis of the hip and knee joints had been condemned to a life of pain and misery with no means to afford even pain medicines, let alone joint replacement. Many of them had lost their livelihood and were unable to support their families.
The hallway of the orthopaedic ward was brimming with patients with walkers in their hands and smiles on their faces. They were amazed to find that they could walk the day after surgery with very less pain. All of them were grateful that they were taken care of with a very high level of kindness and dedication. Dr. Daljeet Saluja, an internist from USA was overwhelmed to see the gratitude of the patients and could not hold back his tears.
Mr. Prem Kumar Gupta, Secretary Managing Society, DMC said that the whole orthopaedics department has been upgraded specially for this project to conform to the international standards. Mr. Prabhjot Likhari and Dr. Paul Khanuja, Directors of Operation Walk Maryland said that they were very happy that they chose DMC for this project and acknowledged the support of the management in organising this event. The funding for this project is entirely from generous donations from United States and prominent citizens of India.
Dr. Mohd. Yamin, Head of Orthopaedics department said that the standard of joint replacement surgery at DMC would get a major uplift with the adoption of advanced protocols used by the visiting team.
Dr. Deepak Jain, Assistant Professor, Orthopaedics and Co-ordinator of the project said that a total of fifty eight joint replacements have been carried out on forty six patients including forty one knee and seventeen hip joints. For the first time in the city, hip replacements have been performed on both hip joints in the same sitting. This has been made possible by advanced techniques in surgery, anaesthesia and post-operative care.
The patients have been operated by latest techniques and implants and the equipment and materials used during this project have been a part of the three tonne cargo brought from USA! The team stayed for further two days after the surgeries to take care of the post operative rehabilitation and make sure that the patients get the best results.