Latest update October 6th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 13, 2010 News
Paediatric open heart operations continued incident-free yesterday at the Caribbean Heart Institute (CHI), taking the number of procedures completed so far to five.
Bharrat Narine of Anna Catherina, West Coast Demerara, was operated on Sunday night and was recovering in the CHI recovery room when Kaieteur News visited yesterday. He was flanked by his mother, Bibi Zabeeda, sisters Sherry and Nazeema, and a family friend, all of whom expressed their appreciation for the successful surgery at no cost to them.
According to Bibi Zabeeda, Bharrat is currently 19 years old but was diagnosed with a heart condition from a very young age. She said that Bharrat would usually suffer from severe shortness of breath, a situation he appeared to be incapable of overcoming.
However, it was last year during a Guyana Watch medical outreach on the West Coast of Demerara that Bharrat was examined and was assured that help would have been forthcoming.
According to Bibi Zabeeda, an echocardiogram was done at CHI. It detected that there was a hole in Bharrat’s heart.
However despite his age he was placed among on a list of children who were selected to be operated on during the inaugural bout of local open-heart paediatric surgery. He was in good spirits yesterday and was eager to relate how thankful he was that a promise made just about one year ago was fulfilled.
Another surgery was performed on two-year-old Udesh Ragubar of Edinburgh, East Bank Berbice.
According to Coordinator of the operations, Lake Persaud, he first learnt of the young lad’s need for surgery when he read an article published in a local newspaper.
It was without hesitation, Persaud said, that he contacted Mr George Subraj who financially supported the surgeries, and Dr Gary Stephens, Chief Executive Officer of CHI. Subraj was the one, Persaud related, who sought to contact the boy’s parents informing them that the operation could be done right here in Guyana at no cost to them.
According to Dr Stephens,
“From a physician’s standpoint it is more difficult for people to appreciate this but for anybody in cardiac and cardiology this is a signal moment for us. Paediatric open heart surgery is not like adults. In paediatrics it is so much more technically difficult and so much more technically involved.”
He commended the efforts of Dr Sheels Vatsia, lead surgeon, and his medical team that are here to undertake the operations. However, after this bout of 11 operations which should be completed before the end of the week no date has been set for continuing the process.
Dr Stephens is optimistic the surgeries will continue in the near future with at least two batches being undertaken with a given year.
“We are going to sit back take a look and see how we can make things better and when everything is nice and quiet we can go to Dr Sheels again when he is back in New York and relaxed.”
With this development fully in place, Dr Stephens asserted that there will be no need for children to travel halfway around the world just to get surgery. He highlighted plans that are currently in the making by a group in Montreal, Canada to ensure that children from the Caribbean can access cardiac service within the Caribbean.
It is anticipated that surgeries can be conducted at a central location with CHI being one of the identified venues.
This move, according to Dr Stephens, has been proposed by a doctor who is expected to make her first trip here to scrutinise the local facility.
“The way they are hoping to operate is to bring down kids from Barbados and Trinidad here when we are having operations so that all operations could be done centrally. It will take some time but I am sure we will eventually get it done,” said an optimistic Dr Stephens.
And in order to accommodate the added surgeries, Dr Stephens revealed that the CHI will soon be afforded additional space within the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) compound. At the moment the GPHC is accommodating some of the open-heart patients.
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