Delhi gangrape row: Dr Naresh Trehan says not transplant, sent girl to Singapore to save her life

"She was sent (to Singapore) more to stablise her (condition) and help her get through the ordeal and not for an immediate intestinal transplant," he said, answering a flurry of questions on the issue.

Trehan, who diagnosed the girl at the Safdarjung Hospital, was at pains to explain that intestinal transplants can be conducted on a patient only on a long-term basis and that the person has to be put on TPN (Total Parental Nutrition) for at least a couple of months before the surgery.

More than once, Trehan said the "brutality" was such that it could be called as "rarest of the rarest of the rare" case and everyone including the government was focused only on getting her some better treatment if it was "existing somewhere in the world."

"We had conducted an intestinal transplant before (the girl was brutally assaulted), but she was not needing it then because of the brutality of the crime...when people make statement they should be responsible," Trehan said in response to queries on a city hospital offering to perform a surgery on the girl when she was alive.

Noting that the girl was "very sick", Trehan said shifting her does not mean hospitals in India lack infrastructure or experience to handle such cases, while asserting that the Mount Elizabeth Hospital specialised in treating patients with trauma of this magnitude.

In this context, he said Medanta receives number of heart patients from across the globe, including the US, because of the specialisation that the hospital does.

The cardiac surgeon said the family was "desirous" on the girl being moved anywhere in the world for better treatment and that doctors also thought they can provide her the best possible treatment available.

Trehan said the girl was flown to Singapore after several doctors from various hospitals treated her and decided that she be sent for advanced treatment.

... contd.

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