Paediatric heart surgeries to be enhanced by collaboration

Nov 08, 2010 News

The service of an open-heart Paediatric Surgeon, who is willing to share his/her expertise between Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago, is currently being sought by the Caribbean Heart Institute (CHI).
The entity’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Gary Stephens, made this disclosure, revealing that CHI has plans to share the remuneration costs for this position with that of the Mount Hope Children’s Hospital in Trinidad.
This move, which is seen as financially feasible, is expected to take off as early as February of next year, Dr Stephens revealed. According to him, CHI has already been in receipt of information from officials at Mount Hope that they are prepared to share the cost.
It is anticipated that the surgeon will be stationed in Guyana but will travel back and forth between the two territories to conduct operations.
“We are hoping to hire somebody real soon, because for both countries it is very difficult to support a single paediatric surgeon…but we think if we hire one and spilt the cost we both could be happy.
It was in April of this year that CHI had made the historic move of introducing the very intricate paediatric open-heart surgery to Guyana. A total of eight operations were undertaken then by lead surgeon Dr Sheel Vatsia, from the Long Island Jewish Medical Centre in New York. He was ably supported by 13 other overseas-based professionals.
Three months prior, a Cardiologist had travelled to Guyana to screen potential clients. However a list of patients was also provided by Mr George Subraj who was one of the major financial supporters of the auspicious venture. Other donors were 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. That entire operation had amounted to in excess of US$50,000, according to Dr Stephens.
But even as plans are apace to continue open-heart surgeries next year, the screening process has not increased. And this Dr Stephens attributes to the fact that Guyana’s Paediatric Heart Programme has not been standardised.
“We don’t screen as many kids as we would like. We still think that the kids programme is fragmented….”
He amplified the need for a common registry so that ailing children could be targeted easily for surgery. Currently there are several bodies that have different lists of children thus creating a difficult situation to track those in dire need.
“I would love to bring all parties together under one roof. I have said this before that the solution for Guyana is a Registry. If we don’t have a Registry we have no idea of the extent of the problem and a lot of the kids that need surgery don’t get the care even though we can provide that care,” Dr Stephens lamented.
However, he noted that putting such a measure in place would require the intervention of the government, which would make it mandatory for the findings of all screening processes to be entered into the database of an existing Registry.
“This would mean when you come to Guyana and you make a diagnosis of congenital heart problems you have to report it including the kid’s age and all necessary information.”
In this regard, the Registry or this one central database would be in a position to avail the relevant information to persons who are desirous of assisting children in need of open-heart operation, Dr Stephens noted.
“Right now there are tons of little groups here and for some reason, which escapes me, they hold onto their information like it is a prized possession…One group even insisted that sharing information would be a privacy violation. I’m sure the mother of that child would agree to share. Do you think she cares who tells who? All she cares about is getting the help for her child.”

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Paediatric heart surgeries to be enhanced by collaboration

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