PM visits heart institute in Mumbai

Mumbai: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today visited Asian Heart Institute here and inaugurated some of its new facilities to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the medical centre. Ramakant Panda, vice chairman and managing director of the institute had, conducted a complex redo bypass surgery on the prime minister in January 2009.[caption id=“attachment_521732” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] The prime minister and his wife Gursharan Kaur inaugurated an orthopaedic, cosmetic and the state-of-the-art robotic and minimally-invasive surgery operation theatre and spent about an hour at the Asian Heart Hospital at Bandra-Kurla Complex. It was a rare personal visit by the prime minister. Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Health Minister Suresh Shetty and others were also present on the occasion. Panda later said that Singh saw facilities available at the private hospital and expressed happiness over the services provided by it. Expressing concerns over the rising incidence of heart diseases among Indians, Panda said that “by 2025, sixty million Indians will be suffering from heart and cardiovascular diseases. Every third person dies of heart ailments.” According to Panda, the worrying aspect is that a large number of heart patients are below 40 years of age. “Lifestyle changes, food habits, lack of exercise, smoking and stress at workplace are contributing to this menace,” he added. PTI