The Heart Centre Treats 8 Children From Guyana

EHM News Bureau

The eight patients treated at The Heart Centre

A group of eight children from The Republic of Guyana were successfully operated at Delhi’s The Heart Centre. These eight children were suffering from complex heart diseases. They were admitted on April 29, 2006 to the Centre after reaching Delhi from Georgetown via London. They were discharged on May 16, 2006.

According to the hospital authorities, the youngest amongst this group is over two years and oldest is 18 years— all of these children have undergone open heart surgery, except one who had a hole in the heart fixed up by an umbrella device. Two of them had heart valve replacements, five of them had intra cardiac repair and some of them had complex anatomy like Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) with congenital mitral stenosis. Four of these patients had severe Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) and were even considered inoperable by other centres. One of them, a four-year-old child with large VSD and parachute mitral valve, also needed permanent pacemaker implantation.

The initiative of the treatment of these children was taken by Jeanette Singh, the President of 3 Rivers Kids Foundation of Canada and by Dr M Khalilullah of The Heart Centre. The patients were treated at exceptionally economic package.

“The foundation also financed one Indian girl child who had undergone open heart surgery for congenital heart disease,” informed Dr SK Kaul, Medical Superintendent of the Centre. “I hope there will be many such joint programmes organised in the future to help the deserving patients across the globe,” Dr Kaul added.

The Centre has been receiving patients from all over India and other countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, UAE, the UK and Saudi Arabia.