The cardiovascular surgery team at Health City Cayman Islands reached an impressive milestone recently by performing more than 150 consecutive surgical procedures without a single surgical mortality.

“This is a proud moment for us as this milestone is rarely achieved in this surgical specialty due to the complexity of the procedures involved,” said Dr. Binoy Chattuparambil, Senior Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon of the Joint Commission International (JCI)-accredited facility.

“The achievement is more laudable”, he added, “when we consider the spectrum of cases performed – both elective and emergency.”

Health City’s world renowned surgeons operated across a number of diverse cases, ranging from complex congenital heart disease in infants weighing as little as 10 pounds, to coronary revascularization, valve repairs and replacements, surgeries for aortic aneurysms and dissection, and endovascular aneurysm repair in adults. Also included in the successful cases were highly complicated implantations of left ventricular assist devices.

Dr. Binoy, as he is commonly addressed, believes the quality, as well as the quantity, of adult and pediatric cardiovascular procedures carried out by the Health City Cayman Islands teams places the tertiary care facility firmly within the cadre of world class medical centers.

All patients who underwent a Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) received a left internal thoracic artery (LITA) graft to bypass the left anterior descending (LAD) artery. Forty-seven percent of patients received total arterial revascularization using bilateral internal thoracic artery grafts to bypass all the blockages. The average number of bypass grafts per person was 4.6. More than 75 percent of patients who had mitral valve surgery received repairs rather than valve replacement.

Among Health City Cayman Islands’ other impressive statistics, the average ventilation time after CABG was three hours, the surgical wound infection rate was only one-half percent, and the rate of readmission within 30 days was just two percent.

Dr. Binoy asserted cardiovascular patients at Health City had relatively short hospital stays: “The average ICU stay postoperatively was 2.5 days, while the average hospital stay for cardiovascular patients was 5.6 days.” Furthermore, only 30 percent of adult patients at Health City Cayman Islands required a blood transfusion.

Describing the results as “a dream for cardiac surgeons,” Dr. Binoy lavished praise on the Health City Cayman Islands teams of highly skilled and experienced anesthesiologists and intensivists; perfusion scientists; nurses in the operating room, intensive care unit and wards; physiotherapists; technicians and other supporting services. “It is our team’s passion and dedication to their work and the compassionate care they provide to our patients which made our success possible.”

The Health City Cayman Islands surgical team has performed cardiac surgery for approximately 100 children from almost a dozen countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Many of them were complex cases for which local expertise was not available, and the children would likely not have survived for long without the surgery.

The provision of heart surgery for children whose families cannot afford the cost was a dream of the late Mother Teresa and her physician Dr. Devi Shetty, who carried out her wish when he set up clinics in India and the Caribbean, the most recent of which is Health City Cayman Islands.