Guwahati, Nov. 29: The Assam government is making special arrangements to send a 15-day-old child to Narayana Hrudayalaya in Bangalore for a critical heart surgery free of cost.

The child will be flown to Bangalore by a Jet Airways flight on December 3. The flight will provide all essential medical equipment, oxygen cylinders and life-saving drugs to ensure the child's safety during the journey. A team of doctors from Gauhati Medical College and Hospital will accompany the child on the flight.

A critical care ambulance will first ferry the child from GMCH to Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport at Borjhar. The ambulance will move to the runway before shifting the child to the flight. Narayana Hrudayalaya has been asked to keep a similar ambulance ready at the runway at Bangalore to ferry the child to the hospital.

"Though we had sent one or two infants to Bangalore earlier for emergency heart surgery, this is a challenge for us since the child is suffering from transposition of the great vessels. At this moment, it is very difficult to predict chances of success of surgery on the child. But we will leave no stone unturned to save the child," Abhijit Sarma, additional superintendent of GMCH told The Telegraph.

Sarma said transposition of the great vessels is a heart defect that occurs from birth (congenital). The two major vessels that carry blood away from the heart - the aorta and the pulmonary artery - are switched (transposed).

"Normally when we take children with congenital heart diseases to Bangalore, the flight keeps six oxygen cylinders ready. But Jet Airways has been told to keep at least 10 oxygen cylinders on the December 3 flight since the condition of the child is very critical," Sarma said.

N.C. Bhattacharyya, principal of Tezpur Medical College and Hospital, said the child would be treated at Bangalore free of cost under a state government scheme.

According to the scheme, claimed as the first such project in the country, Dispur bears the cost of operation and treatment of children suffering from congenital heart defects. The patients are being operated upon at Narayana Hrudalaya Hospitals, Bangalore and Calcutta.

A normal such surgery usually costs Rs 1.35 lakh and in certain cases, Rs 4-5 lakh.

Bhattacharyya, the nodal officer of the scheme, said 3,275 children with congenital heart defect have so far undergone surgery under the scheme since its launch in 2010.

Sarma, who is the state coordinator of the scheme, said the most important benefit of the scheme is that parents have now become aware of symptoms and treatment of the condition, which results in saving lives.