The former PM's first knee operation was done in June 2001.
In 2001, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was admitted in Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital for knee replacement surgery, according to the doctors who treated him, Vajpayee wanted to get operated only in India. A doctor, who was part of the team treating Vajpayee said that he had informed main surgeon Dr Chittaranjan Ranawat that he won't travel to America for the surgery.
Doctors assert that it was his conviction in Indian doctors that let him undergo all surgical procedures in India. Dr Nandkishore Shamrao Laud, a senior orthopaedic surgeon, said, "He had clearly informed Dr Ranawat that he wants to get operated only in India (Hindustan). He does not wish to visit any other foreign land for his surgery. We suggested him to get operated in Mumbai if not in America."
Dr Shrinand Vaidya, orthopaedic surgeon attached with Global Hospital, Mumbai, who too was part of the team of doctors who performed Vajpayee's knee replacement surgery in 2001, recalls him as a co-operative patient.
"I suppose he wanted to showcase that India has reached a technological excellence in surgical field on par with the best in the world. This applies not just to the Chief surgeon who operated on him but the medical staff who took care of him," he said. Dr Vaidya remembers that the surgery got over in one hour and twenty eight minutes. The next day, Vajpayee was up doing his physiotherapy exercises.
The former PM's first knee operation was done in June 2001. "He was a very co-operative and a healthy patient. He was remarkably alert and showed keen understanding of what is done to him," said Dr Vaidya. He remembers to have overheard Vajpayee telling someone that "Bambai ke doctor kaam jyada karte hain, acha karte hain aur baat kam karte hain( Mumbai doctors are hardworking, efficient and don't boast about themselves.)
According to doctors, the former PM was every kind, less talkative and a down to earth person as a human being. Remembering the moment spend with Vajpayee at Breach Candy Hospital, Dr Laud, said, "He followed every medical instruction given to him without fail. As a patient, he never raised any concern about his treatment or troubled any of the hospital staff. When we met for the follow-up check-up, he saw a lot of improvement in him. He was a PM in those days, hence the security was very high, even to reach his bed."
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