Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 03, 2015 News
By Desilon Daniels
“I want to be able to come back here at some point and have the people say, ‘thanks for coming but we really don’t need your help anymore’” – Dr. Debra Isaac
From the time a child is born, its parents excitedly begin planning a future; the child will take first steps then, before you know, it is time for nursery school and soon afterwards, primary school.
Very few parents imagine that their little miracles will be confined to hospital beds before they can even walk, tubes swirling this way and that from their little bodies.
However, for Rushelle McLean, her entry into motherhood had not been straightforward. In November 2013, during a routine checkup at a clinic, an irregularity was noticed in the heart of her first child, one- year old Divine.
Subsequent checkups showed that Divine had developed a congenital heart disease known as patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). PDA is a heart problem that occurs soon after birth, particularly in premature babies such as Divine. However, while the disease would sometimes resolve itself, it failed to do so in Divine’s case.
Though Rushelle said she received assurances from the doctors that the disease was a relatively common one, she nonetheless did her own research and tried to calm her worries.
“I tried not to see it as anything serious. Divine wasn’t showing any signs or symptoms; she seemed healthy and as active as any child her age,” the mother said.
Nonetheless, the doctors warned her that her daughter needed emergency surgery overseas and so, less than two months after Divine was diagnosed with PDA, Rushelle and her young daughter boarded a flight to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
There, Divine was scheduled to be the first child up for surgery due to the seriousness of her condition. However, she was pushed back and instead had to wait for 3 days before she was seen. Rushelle was forced to keep her daughter fasting before the surgery, only able to sneak small bits of candy to her child to keep the girl’s energy up.
“I tried not to panic and I just thought that I had nothing to worry about,” Rushelle said. “I was scared a bit because in Guyana I was told that it’s just PDA but when we got over there I’m hearing it’s more than that.”
Despite the difficulties experienced in the foreign country, Rushelle is grateful that her daughter is now not only alive but healthy. Following surgery, Divine recovered quickly, particularly when compared to other children who developed complications. In fact, Divine took her first steps while in the Dominican Republic.
“There were children who didn’t get better as quickly as Divine did; there were children who were bringing up blood and unfortunately a child died,” Rushelle said.
“I’m extremely relieved that my daughter is getting to live a normal life.”
Capacity building through training
Though overseas surgeries such as Divine’s are saving lives daily, these trips are often not the best solution. Over the years, a number of overseas physician teams have made their ways to Guyana to conduct pediatric heart surgeries. However, these missions would only last a few weeks before the doctors leave Guyana, our physicians unable to replicate their expertise.
Oftentimes, parents are forced to seek assistance abroad but the situation is complicated by a number of factors including high expenses and social disassociation.
Dr. Debra Isaac of the Guyana Pediatric Cardiology Steering Committee and the Georgetown Public Hospital’s (GPH) Heart Failure Clinic emphasised that Guyana must look to building capacity, not only to save time and money but also to develop a legacy for the country.
Currently, a mission team from the International Children’s Heart Foundation (ICHF), commonly known as the Baby Heart Foundation, is in Guyana for a few weeks to complete pediatric heart surgeries.
Isaac, who is working along with the foundation, admitted that she was initially skeptical when she heard of the proposed surgeries.
“I thought, ‘that’s not the way to do things; people just dropping in. How are we supposed to maintain that?’”
She said that, after inquiries, she learnt that ICHF is not only coming to Guyana to conduct surgeries but will also be working along with local physicians to provide something sustainable over the long term.
She emphasised that capacity building was key. She further said that though many children are identified with heart diseases, there are many more who are not being sent for diagnosis or who lack access. Isaac added that these children suffer when they are not diagnosed or screened, or when their heart conditions are not recognised.
“When I first came here to teach echocardiography and teach local physicians how to diagnose heart disease with ultrasound, it was through that that I recognised the great burden of pediatric or childhood heart diseases here. When we were identifying those, we also identified the lack of access to care and the lack of access to good diagnosis for these children. So now we’re able to diagnose them, but we’re not able to manage them.”
In Rushelle’s case, she was not only fortunate enough to have her daughter’s condition diagnosed early but also to have surgery 2 months after diagnosis.
However, many others are not as fortunate and wait long periods before their children can receive surgical intervention.
“There were some children over the years that were sent to India and other places for surgery. The problem with that is that they happen to be at the right place at the right time and their physician wrote a letter to the right person at the right time and they ended up getting sent for surgery. They may or may not be the ones who most needed it,” Isaac said. In fact, she said, in many cases the children are misdiagnosed in Guyana and receive no expert follow-up on their return here.
Isaac, who in almost 4 years has made 19 trips to Guyana, said she is working along with the Ministry of Health to provide screening for local babies to identify if they have heart diseases. If they are identified with possibly having heart diseases, they will be sent to GPH where there is a certified pediatric ultrasound programme. From there, the Pediatric Cardiology Committee will meet with these children, triage them to Isaac and organise surgery.
Furthermore, Isaac said 7 physicians have been trained so far and a fourth echocardiography programme for 8 weeks will commence soon. Isaac said she is also working on having local physicians trained in Canada to build sustainability.
“I want to be able to come back here at some point and have the people say, ‘thanks for coming but we really don’t need your help anymore,’” Isaac said.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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