Impact: Chennai's Apollo Hospital offers free surgery

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New Delhi: Good news poured in for eight-years-old Mita just hours after CNN-IBN telecast the story of the child in Kolakata whose family was unable to afford a complex surgery to mend multiple holes in her heart.

Apollo Chennai has offered to treat 8-year old Mita free of cost after the channel aired the story. Mita Mondal is different in one crucial way. She suffers from what her doctors call a complicated ventricular septor defect. Put simply, she has more than two holes in her heart and even a minor complication can kill her.

“I feel pain and am not able to breath at times,” tells the 8-years-old. Mita's only hope lies in an open-heart surgery but at around Rs1.3 lakh, it's an operation her parents can't afford.

Her father Debu runs a street-side tea stall on Sarat Bose Road in Kolkata. And each passing day is a painful reminder that time is running out for his daughter.

“The hospitals say I need to pay Rs 5,000 for tests, another Rs 5,000 for blood and Rs 80,000 for the operation. I don’t have the money to afford it,” he said. “My husband earns just Rs 25 per day. How do we afford Rs 95,000 for the operation?” said Tripti Mondal, her mother.

After CNN-IBN highlighted Mita's plight, Chennai's Apollo Hospital has emerged as a good samaritan.

“As usual I turned in to CNN-IBN last evening and saw the news where the girl’s parents needed help. It was a spontaneous decision for me. Although the surgery costs Rs 1.5 lakhs, in this particular case we are sponsoring it 100 per cent,” said the head at the Chennai Apollo Hospital.

The hospital has offered to treat her free of cost and is confident she will recover fully. If all goes well, Tripti will indeed get to run around and go to school just like other kids.