[www.inewsguyana.com] – Eighteen children from across the country will be undergoing heart surgery at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) under the tutelage of the International Children’s Heart Foundation (Baby Heart).
The surgeries are slated to commence
over the next two weeks. Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran assured that his Ministry will continue to give the maximum support to this initiative while noting that this is a big step forward for Guyana. Children will now be treated in Guyana and would not have to be sent abroad, away from their families at high expenses.
“It was a cut from our budget to send children overseas, because we did not have the capacity to treat them here, but we will now address the issue,” he said.
The International Children’s Heart Foundation (Baby Heart) recently donated a Heart Lung Machine to the GPHC which is very essential for the surgeries. Minister Ramsaran said that this equipment will not only benefit the Guyanese children who will be undergoing surgery, but hopefully patients who are suffering from other jurisdictions.
Bio-Medical Engineers along with the children who will be undergoing surgery and their parents.
The Minister also lauded the work of the team from Baby Heart Foundation, as well as the doctors at the hospital who have contributed tremendously in making this programme possible.
Dr. Rodrigo Soto, Chief Executive Officer of Baby Heart Foundation said the organisation has been around for over 20 years and has successfully completed 7,500 surgeries in 32 countries. He said its mission is to teach the local health care practitioners, so that in the future they can conduct these surgeries.
“We are here to train Guyanese doctors so they can do assessments, surgeries and take care of the patients after surgeries… and so we will be successful when we do not have to come here anymore, and that mean the local team is able to perform after we would have taught them,” he said.
A special Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is under construction at the GPHC to accommodate the patients that will be undergoing the heart surgeries, to provide better post-surgery care. [Extracted and modified from GINA]
