Noted cardiologist Dr S Padmavati has died at 103 due to COVID-19, the National Heart Institute said on August 30.

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She was undergoing treatment at NHI for past 11 days, doctors said. "Dr S Padmavati, an eminent cardiologist, rather the first female cardiologist of the India, popularly known as 'God Mother of Cardiology' passed away on August 29 due to COVID-19 infection," the NHI said in a statement.

Founder of NHI, she was born in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1917, a year before the world was hit by the Spanish Flu pandemic."S he was admitted with COVID-19 and had breathing difficulty and fever. She developed pneumonia in both lungs and needed ventilator support. However, she sustained a cardiac arrest and passed away," the NHI said. Dr Padmavati was cremated at the designated COVID-19 crematorium at Punjabi Bagh on August 30, it said.

She had migrated to India in 1942 during the World War II. She graduated from the Rangoon Medical College and went overseas for higher education, the statement said. On her return to India, she joined as the faculty at the Lady Hardinge Medical College, it added. In 1962, Dr Padmavati founded the All India Heart Foundation and went on to set up National Heart Institute in 1981 as a tertiary care modern heart hospital in Delhi with first cardiac catheterisation laboratory in the private sector in the Southern Hemisphere, the NHI said.

For her achievements and contributions to development of cardiology in India, she was awarded Fellowship of the American College of Cardiology and FAMS, and Padma Bhushan in 1967 and Padma Vibhushan in 1992 by the Government of India.