The story goes back to about five years ago, when at the age of two months, Sneha’s parents took her to a doctor for a routine medical examination but were told that she was suffering from a congenital heart ailment. The doctor advised them to seek specialist medical advice and so they sought the opinion of Dr GS Wander, Chief Cardiologist and Coordinator at Hero DMC Heart Institute (HDHI). Her ECHO tests were then carried out which revealed multiple defects in her heart: one of its valves was defective, it had major blockages and also had two small holes. Her heartbeat was around 45-50 per minute.

Although the conditions were treatable, the cost associated with the surgery was way beyond the means of Sneha’s parents, Ajay Kumar and Poonam. While her father works in Avon Cycles Ltd, her mother is a housewife. As such they decided to delay her surgery as much as they could in the hope that someday things would fall in place.

In the five years since then, although Sneha continued to grow but her growth was marred by frequent bouts of seizures, high temperature and lack of appetite. Her parents were becoming increasingly worried for her, but finally at the start of this year, their hope bore fruit when the Government of Punjab launched a scheme for school children suffering from congenital cardiac disease.

Under the scheme, select hospitals of Punjab were empanelled to treat such children at highly concessional rates. Although the rates offered to hospitals were far less than their normal rates, the Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Laxmi Kanta Chawla herself convened a meeting of these select hospitals to appeal to them to agree to be a part of the welfare scheme. And Hero DMC Heart Institute was one of the hospitals which gave its approval to the scheme.

The opportunity came as a god-send for Sneha’s parents. They personally met the minister who directed the authorities to help Sneha as she was studying in a government school and therefore could benefit under the scheme. The paper formalities concerning her surgery were quickly processed by the health authorities at Parivar Kalyan Bhawan, Chandigarh. She was then admitted at HDHI and underwent the surgery to repair her defective heart valve and close the two holes in it.

But another challenge arose when the doctors realized that to correct her very low heartbeat, she also needed a pacemaker implantation. But unfortunately it was a procedure that could not be covered under the government scheme. Not to be cowed down by setbacks, her parents took the initiative to mobilize the funds needed for the pacemaker implantation. An appeal was issued by them to local philanthropic organizations and individuals. On their appeal, many contributors came forward to fund Sneha’s case, with Onkar Singh Pahwa of Avon Cycles, where her father works, leading the way with a donation of Rs 50,000.

She was then re-admitted to the hospital to undergo permanent pacemaker implantation. Following the procedure, she was finally discharged on Sunday after all her tests showed perfectly normal readings. On her discharge, Dr Rajeev Gupta, the consultant surgeon who operated upon her, and Dr Wander, who has tracked her case since her birth, thanked all those who contributed towards her treatment. “Sneha’s case had reaffirmed our faith in the generosity of our people at large and it has also attested to the fact that properly directly government schemes can make a real difference to someone’s life,” said Dr Wander.