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No problems expected: Dr Ranawat

Archana Masih, Savera R Someshwar, Syed Firdaus Ashraf

Dr Chittaranjan S Ranawat says he expects no problems when he operates on Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's left knee on Tuesday morning at the Breach Candy hospital in Bombay.

Addressing a press conference at Sahyadri, the Maharashtra government guesthouse, on Monday evening, the surgeon said he had met Vajpayee 15 minutes before his media encounter, and "your prime minister (he quickly corrected himself to "our prime minister") "is in fine spirits." He said he had a lengthy discussion on the operation and recovery with the prime minister who has had all the routine pre-surgery tests done.

The operation will begin at 0930 and take an hour, the surgeon said. The prime minister will be conscious throughout the procedure. Vajpayee has chosen to be administered regional anaesthesia, because it is regarded "safer." A decision on the kind of implant, he added, will be determined during the surgery.

The Rajasthan-born Dr Ranawat, who has been described as the finest orthopaedic surgeon in the world, said he was honoured to operate on Vajpayee. He will operate free of charge, he said. It will take a patient five to ten days to be fully mobile with a cane, the surgeon said, and expects Vajpayee to return to his duties "soon."

Dr Ranawat said he will monitor Vajpayee's post-operative care even after he returns to New York on Saturday. The prime minister, he said, had chosen "elective surgery," meaning he had chosen to do so in consultations with his doctors.

Such operations have been conducted on a large scale since 1974, the surgeon said, adding that he had operated on 3,000 patients himself. Eighty per cent of patients, he revealed, had no problem with the knee replacement. "Normally, the chances of infection are less than one per cent 10 years after surgery," he said.

He said he would have preferred to operate on the prime minister at the Lenox Hill hospital where he is based, since "that is my real home." But once the decision was made to operate in India, he chose the Breach Candy hospital because "I come here every year and am at home with the staff, the doctors, the nurses, the operation theatre. This does not mean there are no better hospitals in the country." He refused to comment on the other patients he will operate on during this visit, saying, "Just because I have a VIP patient does not take away my right to privacy."

Asked if he will play any music during the operation, like many American doctors do, the New York-based Dr Ranawat said he preferred to operate in the silence of the operation theatre. He disclosed he had experienced the "usual delay" at Sahar airport when he arrived on Monday morning, adding, "Things must improve not for one man, but for everyone."

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