AIIMS chief had told PM not to go in for surgery

AIIMS chief had told PM not to go in for surgery
HARISH GUPTA

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 23: With the Prime Minister's knee-replacement surgery likely to be done at Mumbai's Breach Candy hospital -- by US-based NRI doctor C Ranawat -- experts at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences are heaving a sigh of relief.

Reason: Ranawat and AIIMS have a love-hate relationship of sorts ever since he was said to have been rejected by authorities in a job interview decades ago. The second, and the more important reason, is that P K Dave, AIIMS director and himself a premier osteoarthritis surgeon, had advised the Prime Minister not to go in for the surgery.

Sources said that Dave, who had initially examined Vajpayee for the knee pain, had clearly stated that he was against the surgery given the PM's weight and age.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Dave said that surgery should be the ``last option.'' When asked whether the surgery would be performed at AIIMS or Breach Candy, Dave said: ``It is for the family to decide.'' But he maintained that the body weight must be reduced though he declined to talk about it in detail.

Arthritis experts at AIIMS feel that the surgery itself isn't the problem. It's the post-surgery condition that plays an important role. Dave, sources said, wanted the Prime Minister to shed 15 kg from his current weight of 83, go in for intensive physiotherapy and then the surgery, if needed.

Since this apparently didn't fit in with Vajpayee's routine, he went in for a second opinion from Ranawat, director at the Centre for Total Joint Replacement at New York, who advised that the knee be replaced completely.

It was during the course of discussions in New York, AIIMS and the PMO that it was suggested that Breach Candy in Mumbai should be the place for the surgery since Ranawat has worked there. AIIMS doctors say that Vajpayee's convalescence may last for a couple of weeks.