Baby Heart Foundation completes another 13 heart surgeries

The International Children’s Heart Foundation, also known as the Baby Heart Foundation has completed 13 Surgeries and 14 Interventional procedures during its fifth mission here, bringing the total number of persons who have undergone successful cardiac related procedures performed by the team to seventy (70).

Twenty- three (23) Baby Heart team members worked along with local medical staff at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) to perform these cardiac related procedures on persons ranging from three months old and 20 years old.

Over the course of the Foundation’s five missions in Guyana, there has been one fatality which occurred on Saturday, June 25, 2016. The Baby Heart team worked assiduously to save the patient, but the fatality was unavoidable, since the patient was in need of a heart transplant.

In addition to performing cardiac related procedures, the foundation has also been helping to build the capacity of the GPHC to cater to paediatric cardiac patients.

According to Chief Executive Officer of Clinical Operations of the Baby Heart Foundation, Dr. Rodrigo Soto, they have seen progress in the training of local staff, but they still have a long way to go.

He explained that the foundation has continued its bedside training for cardiology unit nurses and physicians and they plan to maintain this training online.

Dr. Soto said that the foundation will be increasing the number of trips they make to Guyana annually from three to four.

According to him, within the next five years the GPHC will be able to independently run the programme. Their next trip is scheduled for September of this year.