The Health Ministry is working with the International Children’s Heart Foundation (ICHF) to train local medical professionals in paediatric cardiac surgery.
A team from the charitable organisation located in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, arrived in Guyana several days ago and over the course of the week, they have been thoroughly examining the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) to determine whether the facility has the capacity to provide paediatric cardiac surgery.
The team is headed by founder and medical director of ICHF, Dr William Novick.
At a press briefing last Thursday, U.S.-based Guyanese Dr Kishan Narine, explained that the government has been trying to advance cardiac care at the GPHC for a number of years. Dr Narine, who is a cardiac intervention surgeon, was instrumental in organising the team’s visit to Guyana. He noted that with the help of the Health Ministry, he managed to get the team to Guyana and to establish a paediatric cardiac programme.
Dr Novick told members of the media that while the ICHF will be providing paediatric surgery training to cardiologists, this process will take several years before they can actually be qualified to operate.
As such, the ICHF has committed itself to providing cardiac surgeries for children in need. These surgeries will be done at one of the foundation’s medical facilities in Central America.
Plan
“Our plan would be to come at least twice a year and operate on children and educate the local team… we would anticipate that the development of your local team would take some 10 to 12 years and we are willing to commit that time in order to help Guyana be able to care for its own children with heart disease,” Dr Novick said.
He disclosed that when the programme starts, some 100 to 125 children will be receiving care from ICHF. The ICHF founder also pointed out that the foundation would be providing training not only to surgeons, but to nurses working in the operating room, ICU and wards.
Though the ICHF will be shouldering most of the cost of the programme, the government and the Health Ministry will have to bear some of the costs for supplies needed to perform paediatric cardiac surgeries.
GPHC Chief Executive Officer Michael Khan said the services provided by ICHF are of minimal cost to Guyana. “Cost is a factor we cannot put into it because the services provided by the foundation is of no cost to Guyanese… it is voluntary and the only cost will be to put up the children and their parents wherever they are but that cost would be levied to the Ministry of Health,” Khan stated.
The CEO explained that the hospital is still in the initial stages of planning the programme, and as such, no one has been identified to undergo the trainings.
ICHF is an organisation which travels around the world to improve paediatric services of medical institutions and provide training.
It has been in existence for 20 years. The foundation currently operates in 31 countries. The surgery and training will commence by July 2014 in Guyana.
