Baby Heart Foundation performs two surgeries

The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) says that the International Children’s Heart Foundation successfully completed two cardiac surgeries on young patients yesterday.

The operations had been scheduled to start on Monday but were pushed back by a day due to a few minor setbacks, the GPHC said in a press release.

The glitches were ironed out and two cardiac catheterizations (a procedure used to diagnose and treat cardiovascular conditions) were performed yesterday and one on Monday.

Additionally, a three-month-old baby girl whose mother took her to schedule an echo at the lab was treated immediately by Director of the Echocardiography Education Pro-gramme at the GPHC, Dr Debra Isaac, who diagnosed a serious heart condition and admitted the patient to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. Dr Isaac said the baby would not have survived had she been sent home. The team expects to perform surgery upon her within 48 hours.

“The time is so perfect because we are here…this child is way too sick to be sent anywhere…we had to give the parent on hand the bad news that their child has a serious heart problem and the good news on the other hand that we can do something about it,” she said.

The Baby Heart Foundation team is in Guyana for the next two weeks to perform free heart surgeries on young persons, the statement said.