Sigh of relief as Mulago starts heart surgeries
Doctors at Mulago hospital during an open heart surgery yesterday. Health Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said surgeries at the hospital will save people from flying out for operations. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa.
What you need to know:
Doctors at the hospital received training from a team of experts from the USA, in a move that will save money for many.
Kevin Kambere’s miraculous call finally came on Friday.
In 2009, the eight-year-old was diagnosed with a pulmonary stenosis – a condition which occurs when one of the valves cannot open wide enough to allow adequate blood flow to the lungs.
According to his father, Mr Ezekiel Mumbere, doctors at Mulago hospital said his son’s disorder could not be corrected and so he was referred to India.
But for Mr Mumbere, a peasant from Kasese District, there was no way he could raise the money to take the boy to India.
“Every year, I would bring him back to Mulago hoping for another option we could explore but every time I came, I got a new referral letter,” the excited Mumbere said, adding, “when I got a call on Friday asking me to bring the boy to Kampala, I abandoned everything I was doing and travelled with the boy late at night so that he would be at the hospital for the Saturday morning appointment.”
On Saturday morning, Kambere was treated under the Cardiac catheterisation – a procedure which involves passing a thin flexible tube (catheter) into the right or left side of the heart directed at repairing heart defects, open narrow heart valves as well as blocked arteries.
The boy is currently being monitored but doctors say he is making progress and is likely to be discharged soon.
Kambere is among the 23 others who have gone through the same lifesaving procedure that ended on Saturday as the open surgery camp opened, with two patients operated on so far. Another eight are scheduled to be operated on by Friday.
The team comprising of 18 experts from Riley Hospital for Children in the USA has been at Uganda’s only heart institute to conduct both training for health doctors at the hospital and treating children with heart defects at the fifth training mission in Uganda since 2010.
Saving lives
Funded by the members of the Rotary Club of Kampala North and the Greenfield International Rotary Club, the programme is aimed at supporting at least 200 children with birth defects in Uganda every year.
The beneficiaries are those with complications ranging from blocked blood vessels, holes in the heart among others.
According the director of the Institute, Dr John Omangino, the number of children in need of such interventions remains high yet the corrective surgery is not affordable for many.
Dr Omangino said such missions not only save patients a lot of money they would have used seeking the service in other countries, but also equips the local doctors with skills that will help them carry out repairs in open heart surgery on their own.
Dr Stephanie Kinnaman, the head of the Greenfield Rotary Club in the US said the planned skills transfer between the Ugandan teams and visiting pediatrics cardiologists will continue to push the complexity of heart defects that the Ugandan team can repair on their own.
A simple catheterisation procedure costs about $2,500 (about Shs6.3 million) while the open heart procedures costs between $15,000 and 20,000 [about Shs37 million].
