23 Jan : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will undergo heart surgery on Saturday to remove cardiac blockages for which he was admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Friday.
"Dr Manmohan Singh will undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery on 24th January at AIIMS," PMO Spokesperson Deepak Sandhu said on Friday. Coronary angiography and a series of other tests were performed on Singh at AIIMS on Monday.He was discharged from the prestigious hospital on Thursday morning.
The Prime Minister will miss the Republic Day parade. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is likely to officiate in his absence, would be laying the wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti on that day.
The surgery on the 76-year-old Prime Minister would be performed by a team of doctors drawn from AIIMS and the Asian Heart Institute (AHI), Mumbai, Sandhu said.
The team conducting the surgery would be supported by doctors and technical staff drawn from other departments of AIIMS, she said.
The surgical team from AHI will include Rama Kant Panda, cardiac surgeon, Vijay Desilva, ICU specialist, and Narendra Garach, anesthetist, hospital sources said.
"The team has brought about 20 boxes of special equipment with it. Earlier, Dr K S Reddy (the PM’s personal physician) had discussions with Dr Panda in connection with the line of treatment to be followed," they said.
Dr. Singh, who had undergone a coronary artery by-pass surgery in the UK in 1990 and angioplasty a few years back, had complained of some chest pain after which a decision to carry out the tests was taken.