Amid the COVID pandemic fear, doctors from LIFECARE Multispeciality Clinic & Laboratory, Dr.Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Bhawan (BJP Bhawan), Middle Point, Port Blair and TROS.CARE, Chennai successfully performed four life saving procedures back to back in a single day at Pillar Health Centre, Lambaline, Port Blair. This includes New AV Fistulas, Aneurysm (blood vessel swelling) repair and a Permanent Dialysis Catheter insertion.

COVID pandemic has put tremendous pressure on patients and health care around the world. The entire health care is put in the Herculean task of treating COVID patients. But unfortunately patients suffering from other chronic and significant illnesses are the most affected as their routine care is hugely affected. Dialysis patients are one of the most vulnerable group in this.
Dr.Kathikeyan,MD (Physician), the doctor incharge of LIFECARE Multispeciality Clinic & Laboratory, Port Blair who organised these surgeries said “Most of our dialysis patients used to travel to mainland for almost all procedures / problems related to dialysis. They suffered a lot as they could not travel during lockdown. We wanted to help them in someway”.
“COVID should not stop us from doing the very essential health service “said Dr Prabhu Kanchi, MBBS, MD(Medicine), DM (Nephro), FIAN (Canada) , Senior Transplant Nephrologist from TROS.care Chennai.
He added “we were consulting patients ONLINE since August 2020, through Tros.care and with help of LIFECARE Multispeciality Clinic & Laboratory, Middle Point, Port Blair we started OPD consultation of patients every month regularly at Port Blair itself since November 2020. We realised many of the dialysis patients needed AV Fistulas or Permanent catheter for continuing dialysis. These are lifeline for them and without it dialysis cannot be done effectively. Since many patients were not willing to take flight to mainland due to COVID fear, our doctors decided to take up this challenge and fly to Andaman & Nicobar Islands and help them out. We saw this as an opportunity to serve people in need “
Vascular surgeon from Chennai Dr Karthikeyan, MBBS,DNB(GS) MCh(Vascular Surgery), MRCS (Edinburgh) told media “although we spent whole day doing surgeries , we are happy that we cloud help the patients on time. He explained “One patient had aneurysm (swelling of the blood vessel) of the old AV graft. It was dangerously getting bigger. We did timely surgery, otherwise the rupture of same or bleeding would have been life threatening” . Patients son said “ We are thankful to the team of Doctors who have taken the pain of coming from mainland to Andaman during these testing times to perform this operation in Port Blair itself. We were very scared to travel to mainland due to the pandemic.”
One Other patient’s son thanked the entire team for successfully creating fistula for his father and said “ Doctors explained the surgery very well before hand . The whole team helped us through the entire process right from admission until discharge”
While addressing the media Mr T.Mohammed Shahid, Proprietor of LIFECARE Multispeciality Clinic & Laboratory, Middle Point, Port Blair said “ in recent past this is the first time ever in Andaman & Nicobar Islands that these procedures are taking place outside govt hospital. This has made out patients life easy , they now get quality treatment at Port Blair itself thus saving both timeand money and at the same avoiding vulnerability to COVID by not visiting mainland. “ .
He added that “ It was not easy to organise such a surgery but all our efforts paid off, we are happy that it turned out to be a very successful initiative. We will make sure that this continues. We will also expand the services to other departments and help our patients as much as possible.
He expressed his gratitude to the Administrator, Pillar Health Centre, Port Blair for extending all facility and support from the admission to till discharge of patients “
All the four patients who were benefited from the visit of Vascular Surgeon from Chennai at LIFECARE Multispeciality Clinic & Laboratory were from inter-islands. The patient’s underwent procedures for Permanent Catheter, Repair of AV Graft and New AV Fistula were from Billiground, Rangat, Baratang and Nicobar respectively.
Mr.T.Mohammed Shahid, Proprietor of LIFECARE Multispeciality Clinic & Laboratory, Middle Point, Port Blair informed that in coming days apart from Consultation for Nephrology and Vascular Surgery, the clinic will be providing out patient consultation for Oncology,Neurology,Cardiology Urology ,Dermatology and more particularly Diabetology. The clinic is coming up with a exclusive unit for Diabetes Care. Patients need not visit mainland for many sophisticated and important tests which are essential for complete diabetes management. Tests like ABI/TBI Vascular Study, IR Dermal Thermometry-Monofilament 10 gm Study, Arterial Doppler Study, Digital Biothesiometry Study, Plantar Pressure Report and Plantar Thermal Monitoring will be available in their facility at Port Blair itself. Super Specialist doctors from TROS.Care Chennai will be leading the clinic for providing these facilities.