Pakistani-born British surgeon Dr Asif Hasan received Pride of Britain Lifetime Achievement Award after performing over 4,000 child heart operations including 400 transplants and saving Cecilia’s life in Newcastle
Cecilia, from Britain, was born with a heart disease and by the age of two, she had undergone several surgeries and even a bypass.
And when Cecilia turned eight, there was no other option except a heart transplant to keep her alive.
But the problem was that at that time, no donor matching Cecilia’s age and weight was available. The donor who did match weighed 90 kilograms, while eight-year-old Cecilia was only 20 kilograms. In simple words, that heart was too big for Cecilia’s body.
Dr Asif Hasan, associated with Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, and his team, using a new technique which had not been used before in children’s heart surgeries, fitted that big heart into Cecilia’s small chest.
This was a ‘life-saving’ success not only for Cecilia and her family but also for the field of children’s heart surgery. Recently, at the Pride of Britain Awards, Dr Asif Hasan was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his valuable services in the field of heart surgery.
When footage of this awards ceremony went viral on social media, there was hardly an eye that did not fill with tears.
Especially when the host called Dr Asif to the stage and told him that some of the children whose heart surgeries he had performed were present in the audience and wanted to thank him for saving their lives.
This scene was a proud moment for all kind-hearted people, especially for Pakistanis living in Britain, because Dr Asif Hasan is a Pakistani-born British citizen and has been saving the lives of young children here for the past 35 years.
Dr Asif is counted among the world’s leading heart surgeons in terms of children’s heart surgeries. This is his speciality, or as he says, his ‘super speciality’, that is, children’s heart surgeries and transplants.
According to Dr Asif, during his career he has performed more than 4,000 heart operations and more than 400 heart transplants in total. Apart from this, there are countless other operations in which he has assisted doctors.
In a special interview with BBC Urdu, Dr Asif Hasan said regarding Cecilia’s case that when the child was given the heart of a 90-kilogram person, it was impossible to close her opened chest, so the chest was not closed.
According to Dr Asif, ‘What happened was that the heart gradually shrank to make its place and the skin covered the chest.’
Among the children who came to meet Dr Asif Hasan during the Pride of Britain Awards ceremony was Cecilia, who has now grown up.
