The International Children’s Heart Foundation (ICHF) has completed 175 cardiac-related procedures during its sixth mission in Guyana, which came to an end on Saturday.
Having completed five previous missions, which commenced in April 2015, the Baby Heart team as it is commonly known has been performing complex surgical procedures and providing training for local staff which is geared towards the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) establishing its own paediatric cardiac unit.
According to Paediatric Surgeon Dr Marissa Seepersaud, of the 175 procedures, 84 were open heart surgeries, 33 were cardiac catheterization and 13 were complicated cardiac surgeries. The ICHF’s sixth mission ran from September 17 to October 1.
The majority of the 13 children requiring complicated cardiac surgeries originated from Guyana’s hinterland and were referred to the GPH by various health facilities across the country. Further, the team would have seen patients as young as 20 days old to as old as 34 years old.
Dr Seepersaud expressed gratitude for the continued efforts of the Ministry of Public Health, GPHC and ICHF, and described them as a group of persons who recognized the need for the development of paediatric cardiac care and the development of paediatric intensive care in Guyana particularly at GPH.
She further noted that ICHF is not only focused on treating vulnerable patients but also on the capacity building of local medical personnel to handle such cases on their own.
“It is noteworthy that Baby Heart is not only interested in coming to help us to actually treat these vulnerable patients but also help us to continue long after they leave. Their main emphasis is to impart knowledge and to make sure that the local team is well trained to do this,” Dr Seepersaud said.
This, she said, was reflected in the training of in excess of 40 nurses, seven paediatric registrars and a number of residents and other local medical personnel.
“For this mission, we have had five training sessions before the actual mission started and a full day of training where we emphasized paediatric intensive care aspects of paediatric cardiac care. This is one of the main pushes for ICHF and we are very grateful for their emphasis in this area as it would benefit not only our cardiac patients but also any intensive care patient that we may encounter,” she noted.
Commenting on the extent of the clinic work that was done, Seepersaud said that a number of the cases presented during this mission were complex as they involved young patients.
Additionally, the team was able to conduct open heart surgery on a neonate; this is particularly significant since it was the first time such a procedure has been conducted in Guyana.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of Clinical Operations Dr Rodrigo Soto thanked both the Ministry of Public Health and those at the GPH for their continued support while emphasizing the importance of building the capacity of the local personnel.
“We are here to help the local team to develop their own unit; our main focus is not only to operate on patients but to also train local health care providers so that they can perform the same procedures in the years to come,” Dr Soto said.
“The best day is going to come when Baby Heart becomes obsolete in Guyana and we will be very happy in returning to visit you guys to see how the local programme develops. This programme is not only going to help the kids with congenital heart disease. What we are doing here is actually building capacity,” to take care of all of the critically ill patients that go to the GPH, he added.
Soto revealed plans to establish a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the GPH; this, would be the first of its kind in the country.
“One of the things we have discussed…, is the capacity of ICU due to the complexity of the cases…. Certainly, the ICU is getting smaller and we are now planning to do an expansion…
That is our goal, to build a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit here, which will not only look after patients with congenital heart disease but also will be able to treat patients that are critically ill,” he related.
According to Seepersaud, space has already been identified for the expansion of the ICU and consultations have been ongoing with the Minister of Public Health.
Further, Baby Heart has agreed to fund 50% of the infrastructure works along with 100% of the equipment that is needed for the expansion. The remainder has been pledged by the Minister of Health. With this in the works, Seepersaud expressed the hope of having the expansion completed by the end of 2017. She explained that it would allow for the current capacity of the IUC to be doubled.
Further, because most of the cases that are presented to the team are very complex, patients are required to stay longer in the ICU and with the team having a finite number of operating days, the lack of space in the ICU hinders the number of operations that can be done.
As it is right now, Seepersaud explained the ICU has a four-bed capacity, an eight-bed High Dependency Unit and an eight-bed pre-operation area.
Meanwhile, Soto stated that while Guyana still has a long way to go, he is pleased with the progress that has been made thus far.
He further identified Guyana as being one of the fastest growing hubs for such medical procedures in the region. This, being said, he revealed plans to make Guyana a referral centre for the region.
“Baby Heart has worked with many countries in the region including Venezuela, Brazil, and some others in the Caribbean [and] they want us to develop similar programmes in their countries. However, I truly believe that we need to focus and use our resourc-es to develop a centre of excellence [where] we can refer those patients and hopefully, that dream will come true in a reasonable period of time,” he said.
Chairman of the GPHC Board of Directors Dr Carl Max Hanoman in brief remarks expressed heartfelt gratitude towards the Baby Heart team for their remarkable work on each of their missions to save the lives of the children of Guyana and for the valuable donations they have made to the GPHC and to Guyana over the years.
The team is expected to return to Guyana for its seventh mission, which will commence on November 30 and run until December 14.
