The International Children Heart (ICHF) Foundation, also known as “Baby Heart” on Friday completed its sixth round of paediatric heart surgeries at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC), with some 13 cases being attended to over the past two weeks.
The team which comprises doctors from countries across the world visits the Georgetown Public Hospital for two weeks every two and a half months. On Friday, after completing some 13 surgeries, including those of congenital heart conditions, the team prepared to leave Guyana.
Dr Rodrigo Soto, CEO of ICHF
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the ICHF, Dr Rodrigo Soto took the opportunity to reach out to persons who may have a congenital heart disease to seek referrals to the GPHC, so that it could be corrected.
“Baby Heart has been called for in many other countries in the region, including Venezuela, Brazil and other islands in the Caribbean, in which they want us to go and develop the programme like we are doing here. However, we do believe that we need to focus and use our resources and money to help us develop a centre of excellence for our patients.”
He explained that there is no way that one can prevent congenital heart disease, since at least one per cent of babies will be born with the disease that may or may not require medical treatment.
“Based on Guyana’s population and based on the birth rate, we know that every year, there will be between 60 and 70 patients that will need surgery in Guyana,” Dr Soto said.
Dr Soto said the team has entered into collaboration with Government and the GPHC to have health officials at the institutions trained in this area. He said they are also seeking to establish a paediatric Intensive Care Unit, so that the local team at the hospital could ably take care of babies and children found to be in critical conditions. However, the programme will not only look after babies with heart diseases but take care of all critical paediatric patients.
Local Paediatric Surgeon, Dr Marissa Seepersaud
Local Paediatric Surgeon, Dr Marissa Seepersaud said the team saw a number of cases this time around. The youngest patient was a 20-day-old baby and the oldest a 34-year-old, who had congenital heart disease.
“This particular mission, we were able to do for the first time in Guyana surgery on a neonate. So we had the first neonatal open heart case done in Guyana,” adding that there are certainly a lot more in the pipeline for the hospital.
Dr Seepersaud said the institution has seen the need for the development of paediatric cardiac care and in Guyana. According to her, Baby Heart is not only interested in helping to treat the patients but is seeking to prepare the way for the hospital to continue long after they leave.
According to Dr Seepersaud, the unit has identified an area to have the expansion of the ICU. ICHF, she reported, has offered to fund 50 per cent of the infrastructure and 100 per cent of the equipment that is needed for the expansion. It is hoped that by the end of 2017, the ICU will be up and running. She said the ICU is very much needed at this time since the section is seeing an increasing amount of paediatric patients with many complexities. According to her, this means that they will have to spend longer periods in the ICU.
So far the team, which began operation over a year and a half ago, has performed 117 procedures, including 84 open heart surgeries and 33 cardiac categorisations. The team returns later this year in December.
During the five previous missions which commenced in April 2015, the Baby Heart team has been performing complex surgeries and providing training for local staff geared at preparing the hospital to perform same on its own.
