Overseas foundation to help expand GPHC’s Paediatric Heart Surgery Unit

Oct 02, 2016 News

-completes more successful surgeries

Plans are apace for an extension of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC’)s

Chairman of GPHC’s Board, Dr. Carl ‘Max’ Hanoman, lauds the support of Baby Heart Foundation.

Paediatric Heart Surgery Unit.
The hospital’s heart surgery programme is one that is currently undertaken in collaboration with the International Children’s Heart Foundation which is known as the Baby Heart Foundation.
At the moment, the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for Paediatric Surgery contains four beds, while the High Dependency Unit and the Pre-operation Unit contains eight respectively.
But according to Head of Paediatric Surgery, Dr. Marissa Seepersaud, “we are hoping to double that number.”
She disclosed that the need for the expansion is imperative since efforts are being made to undertake more surgeries at a time. “We need that because we are seeing younger and more complex patients who need to stay longer in the ICU and we want to keep operating because there is a finite amount of operating days that we have when the (Baby Heart Foundation) team comes,” Dr. Seepersaud explained.
On Friday, the Head of Paediatric Surgery said, that discussions have already ensued between the GPHC, the Ministry of Public Health and the Baby Heart Foundation.
Dr. Seepersaud shared Friday that space for the expansion has been identified and funding has already been discussed. She noted that the Baby Heart foundation has committed to finding 50 per cent of the infrastructural cost and has promised to supply 100 per cent of the equipment for expanded facility.

Members of Baby Heart Foundation and some of their appreciative patients.

Government, Minister Norton has assured, will fund the additional 50 per cent for the infrastructural work. “We are hoping that it will be done by the end of 2017,” said Dr. Seepersaud.
The Baby Heart Foundation during this past week completed its sixth phase of paediatric heart surgery at the GPHC. This visit commenced on September 17, last, and will conclude today.
The youngest patient operated on was a 20-day-old baby girl.
According to Dr. Seepersaud, this operation represented the first time that an open heart operation has been done on a neonate. On this occasion, of the 13 patients operated on, one was a 39-year-old woman.
According to Dr. Seepersaud, the programme which affords patients cardiac care free of cost does not discriminate.
According to Chairman of the Board of Directors of the GPHC, Dr. Carl ‘Max’ Hanoman, the Baby Heart Foundation has been undertaking complex surgeries and providing training to local staff which is geared towards the hospital establishing its own paediatric cardiac team.
To date, the operation has completed 117 procedures which include 84 open heart surgeries and 33 cardiac catherisation.
Paediatric Surgeon, Dr. Rodrigo Soto, is the head of the Baby Heart Foundation and according to him “we still have a long way to go but we are very pleased with the way things are moving forward. This is probably one of our programmes growing fastest and exponentially and we will continue with education and training.”
The Baby Heart Foundation is a not for profit organisation that is based in Memphis, United States which has been in existence since 1993. The organisation has years of experience in sustainable and independent paediatric cardiac services around the world.
It has been able to offer paediatric heart care, through the expertise of mainly volunteer medical practitioners, to 33 countries and has thus far completed in excess of 9,000 surgeries. Its contributions to these countries have allowed for many of them to eventually offer crucial paediatric services independently.
On Friday, ahead of their departure, members of the Baby Heart Foundation together with the GPHC treated their young patients to a fun-filled time at the Thomas Lands, Georgetown African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) headquarters.

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