Latest update April 7th, 2025 12:02 AM
Apr 15, 2010 News
All of the patients who benefited from the recently completed inaugural open-heart paediatric surgeries are doing well, according to Dr Gary Stephens.
Dr Stephens is head of the Caribbean Heart Institute where the surgeries were performed. He said, yesterday, that he is very satisfied with the outcome of the operations.
All of the patients are expected to fully recover, possibly without any need for further intervention, according to lead surgeon Dr Sheel Vatsia. And this, he said, is based on the fact that they were strategically chosen.
“We purposely chose those in whom after successful surgery they typically shouldn’t need multiple or staged intervention.”
He noted, though, that in a few individual instances there could be some challenges but he is confident that most of the children operated on should be fine. The patients will all be closely monitored over the next few days to ensure that their recovery remains constant.
The operations were characteristic of surgically correcting a number of heart defects with which the patients were born. And according to Dr Vatsia, the range of defects was fairly diverse and could have resulted in early or premature death if they were not corrected in a timely manner.
“Many of these children, ideally, should have had their operating procedures done years ago so it is already somewhat a delayed time to intervene. That itself could give rise to a more technically challenging recovery and somewhat of a higher risk at times, depending on the individual patient…But so far everything has worked out well with the children that we have been able to help,” Dr Vatsia noted.
He highlighted the need for some amount of follow-up even as he expressed optimism that the majority of the patients should do well in the long term.
Most congenital heart defects occur for reasons that may not be too clear to medical experts, according to Dr Vatsia.
However, he noted that there are some that may be inherited or are related to the environment. There are various infections that one might contract.
“On average most children affected with congenital heart diseases and the genetic type of problem that may result are typically not inherited. There is not too much you can do to prevent this.”
And death could be inevitable for some patients more than others, if they are not provided with the necessary medical attention.
The recent operations were made available to the patients free of cost, an undertaking that represents a massive government/private sector collaboration.
Among the other financial donors were Mr George Subraj, owner of Zara Realty in Queens New York, Mr John Tracey and staff of the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry, Mr Gregory Dean and staff of Digicel Guyana, Laparkan Shipping, Pegasus Hotel, Lake Persaud and Pastor Graham of World Vision Church.
So far the undertaking is estimated to cost about US$50,000, a figure that will not be fully confirmed until later, according to Dr Stephens. Government contributed US$20,000 to the venture.
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