HEALTH

Matter Of The Heart
Hospital comes to aid of needy
Our Correspondent

Mohali, October 25
“A new lease of life has been given to my 11-year-old son after a surgery was performed on him by Grecian Super-speciality Hospital. He had a hole in his heart,” said Balbir Singh from Ferozepur who worked as a labourer.

He said he went to a number of doctors and was referred to the PGI , Chandigarh, but he decided to come to Mohali. He said his child was operated upon free of cost. He was only asked to arrange for five bottles of blood.

The children of Munni and Surinder Kaur from villages in Haryana were also suffering from with similar ailment. The two children also underwent surgeries free of cost as they belonged to poor families. Fathers of both the children are labourers.

Surgeons from the prestigious centre for paediatric heart treatment ‘Narayana Hrudayalaya’, Bangalore, performed six highly complex operations on small children who had holes in their hearts.

The surgeries were performed as part of a special paediatric cardiac care programme to help poor and needy child patients with financial help from public and aid from Grecian Hospital authorities. All surgeries were performed by a team of surgeons headed by Dr Colin John.

Dr Shivpreet Singh Samra said at a press conference here today that three operations were performed totally free of cost as the children came from very poor families. He said no child would be refused surgery just because he was poor. The hospital would be offering free services to such patients but with the help of financial support from the public.

He said surgeries for other three children were performed at a highly discounted rate of Rs 65,000 though patients gave only Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 with the rest of the expenses being borne by the hospital and through donations from the public.

Samra said heart surgeries were to be performed on 10 children but four of them were not fit to be operated upon. He said the hospital aimed to perform 15 such surgeries by January next year.

SPORTS

Territorial Army lift title
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 25
Territorial Army (TA) won top honours in the Federation Cup Cycle Polo Championship beating Indian Air Force (IAF) 13-11 in the well-contested final match that was held at the Chandigarh Police Lines, Sector 26, here, today.

For TA, Shanoj, Shabir and Shrikant played key roles as Shanoj scored six goals while Shabir and Shrikant netted four and two goals, respectively.

Ashruddin, who pumped in 10 goals, including two hat tricks, proved to be the best scorer for IAF. Jatinder was the other scorer with his solo goal.

Maharashtra prevailed over Uttar Pradesh by 15-10 to clinch the third and fourth positions, respectively.

Chief-guest Satinder Kumar, inspector general of police, Haryana, gave away the prizes.

The championship was organised by the Chandigarh Cycle Polo Association.

Results:

Finals: Territorial Army (Shanoj 6, Shabir 4, Srikant 2) b Indian Air Force (Ashruddin 10, Jatinder 1); Maharashtra (Milind 6, Harshal 4, Shivrajan 3, Nikhil 2) b Uttar Pradesh (Prarmod 6, Manoj 2, Ravi Shekhar 1, Pawan Kumar 1); semi-finals: IAF (Ashruddin 6, Jatinder 4, Sagar 2) b Uttar Pradesh (Pramod Tiwari 10, Ravi Shekhar 1); Territorial Army (Anshad 5, Shrikant 4, Saroj 4,Shabir 3) b Maharashtra (Milind Patley 6, Harshal 2, Nikhil 2, Shivrajan 1).

Golf: Sharmila surges ahead
Donald Banerjee

Chandigarh, October 25
Defending champion Sharmila Nicolette from Bangalore struck a bright patch, although the birdie remained elusive, as she surged ahead with a three-over par 75 card to take a three-stroke lead on the penultimate day of the 15th Realtech Punjab Open Ladies Amateur Golf Championship on the par-72 greens of the Chandigarh Golf Club here today.

Hot on the heels of the Bangalaore teenager was 13-year-old Meher Atwal, who also played a three-over par 75 to occupy the second spot along with Delhi's Shweta Galande at 234, three strokes behind the leader.

Yesterday's leader Nalini Singh fell to the fourth spot where she was tied with Akriti Singh of Amritsar at 238.

Shreya Ghei, who plays with a handicap of nine, was placed sixth at 245. She also had the nett third spot in the Silver Salver.

Meher Atwal led the Silver Salver nett leaderboard at 204. Akriti Singh was four strokes behind at 208.

Sharmila bogeyed thrice in the first nine. But the return nine was an all-par affair. But 13-year-old Meher struck four birdie in her three-over par 75.

Harjeet grabs six wickets

Chandigarh, October 25
A six-wicket haul by Harjeet enabled Government College, Muktsar, to register a 56-run victory over the local Government College-46 in the Panjab University Inter-college Cricket Tournament at PU, here today.

Batting first, the Muktsar team put on 153 runs, losing all wickets in just 36.5 overs. Jagseer was the highest scorer with 23 runs, while Jatinder remained unbeaten on 21 runs.

Chasing the target, the Chandigarh team gave up for a meagre 97 runs in 30.1 overs. Harjeet wrecked the batting line of the local team by claiming six wickets for 15 runs in 7.1 overs. Jatinder took two wickets for 21 runs. — TNS

Netball
PU Campus beat DAV-10
Tribune News Service

Boxing
Sarabjeet beats Jaspreet
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 25
Local pugilist Sarabjeet Singh of Sri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26, knocked down Jaspreet of Government College, Sector 11, in the 60-64-kg weight category during the Panjab University Inter-college Boxing (men) Championship that was held at Gymansium Hall, PU, here, today.