Baby Heart Foundation completes eight more procedures at GPHC

Mar 26, 2017 News

Seven surgeries and one cardiac catherisation were among the procedures recently conducted at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) as part of its continued collaboration with the International

Dr. Rodrigo Soto takes time out to pose for a photo with his youngest patient this trip as he lies in the arms of his mother.

Children’s Heart Foundation better known as the Baby Heart Foundation.
The ages of those who benefited from the procedures ranged from 17 years to five months, and are all recovering well. The youngest patient that the Baby Heart team has offered its expertise to since commencing its collaboration here was two weeks old.
“That is what we are aiming for, to repair these kids at an early stage, because we know that is when they have the best outcome and the best long term results,” said Dr. Rodrigo Soto, the Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer of Clinical Operations.
The Baby Heart Foundation team of 20 experts, including a cardiologist, perfusionists, surgeons, scrub nurses, intensivist, ICU nurses, respiratory therapists and a biomedical engineer, arrived in Guyana 10 days ago, and is expected to remain here for another 10 days and complete other paediatric procedures.
Dr. Soto during an interview with this publication on Friday underscored that “we have done very complex cases when compared to what we use to do when we started the programme two years ago”.
According to Dr. Soto, some of the procedures that are being conducted at the Georgetown Hospital now have been known to be a challenge, even in well established countries such as the United States.
“We are very proud that we are able to do this, because we can expose the local professionals to see these patients and also learn how to take care of these more complex cases so that is the goal of the programme,” explained Dr. Soto.
Based on the agreement the Foundation has with the Guyana Government through the Ministry of Public Health, the Foundation will bring experts at least four times per year.
This is important, Dr. Soto said, in order to address the backlog of existing cases, while at the same time giving continuity of education to the local health professionals.
“If we don’t come as often, every trip will be like starting from scratch, but if we come every three months things will be better and the local team will be more comfortable, because there is continuity,” related Dr. Soto.
But the main goal of the Baby Heart Foundation, according to Dr. Soto, is to develop a sustainable and independent unit.
“So we are working one to one with our counterparts to teach them how to do this…and I would say that there are some aspects that have been running very smoothly,” said Dr. Soto, as he made reference to the nurses in training who have been receiving their training very well. He also alluded to the surgical aspect of the training, pointing out that currently there are two individuals in training who, in a couple of years, should at least be partially independent.
“In general terms, I would say that 50 percent of the local team that we are training is progressing nicely and we hope to be able, by 2020, to say you have a partially independent unit that can at least handle the simple cases, and certainly Baby Heart will be happy to be able to continue to assist GPHC,” said Dr. Soto, as he assured,”things are progressing nicely.”
He pointed out that even with the change of the political administration there has been no hindrance to the support that the Foundation is able to offer. In fact, he informed that it (new government) has been receptive and very involved in the collaboration.
“The new administration has actually expressed verbal support of what we are doing…they have been on board right away with what we are doing. The current Minister [Volda Lawrence] and Junior Minister [Karen Cummings] are willing to make things smoother for us, because they realise how important the mission is that we are accomplishing here,” said Dr. Soto.
Because of the forthcoming support, he is confident that the two sides will shortly be able to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to further concretise the collaboration.

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