The children, who are from various parts of the country including Ilesa and Ikire in Osun State, Akure (Ondo State), Warri (Delta State), Offa (Kwara State) and Port-Harcourt (Rivers State), had the surgeries performed on them between Tuesday, April 26 and Sunday, May 1, 2016.
The Chief Medical Director, OAUTH, Professor Victor Adetiloye, who disclosed this to Vanguard said another 20 children are already slated for June-July 2016 for open heart surgeries, which for now, the hospital hopes to perform routinely, at least quarterly.
“This is an accomplishment of our dreams and visions seeing that this is possible in Ile-Ife,” Adetiloye remarked, even as he commended the medical team comprising cardiothoracic surgeons, led by Drs. Akin Ogunrombi and Uvie Onakpoya, a paediatric cardiologist, Dr. John Okeniyi, an Open Heart Task Force, operating theatre nurses, and a host of other departmental staff of the hospital including the Dean, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, OAU, Ile-Ife, who freely donated blood.
Adetiloye, who regretted the high incidence of cardiac diseases and its contribution to poor health status and low life expectancy in the country, said it was in the bid to stem the tide, that the Management of OAUTH, Ile-Ife, over the past years invested heavily in the procurement of equipment, consumables and the training of personnel to be able to diagnose and treat heart diseases both medically and surgically.
He said the impact of heart diseases both acquired and congenital which hitherto were considered as exoteric and uncommon is on the rise.
“In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that to be able to treat the heart diseases in any country, at least 400 open heart surgeries need to be performed for every one million population yearly.
“Assuming Nigeria’s current population is 170 million people, this means Nigeria should be performing at least 68,000 heart surgeries every year.
“Until this year, the OAUTH runs both adult and paediatric cardiology services and routinely perform closed cardiac surgeries such as Trans-thoracic PDA ligations, pericardectomies, pacemaker implantations and various other forms of closed surgical operations on the heart, blood vessels and the chest, but the desire to move up to start performing open heart surgeries spurred the management on the leadership of the current Chief Medical Director, two years ago to set up a task force for open heart surgery headed by Professor M.O. Balogun, a renowned adult cardiologist,” Adetiloye remarked.
To this end, the Hospital entered into a partnership with the Cardiac Eye International Foundation, a foreign NGO headed by Prof. Maqsood Elahi.
“An 8½-month-old female infant with congenital rubella syndrome referred from Delta State was the recipient of the first exploratory interaction between the Hospital and the Cardiac Eye International Foundation. In December 2015, she underwent a simultaneous PDA closure and repair of her bilateral cataracts successfully,” the CMD noted.
He said the OAUTHC is poised to become a referral centre for cardiac surgery in the West African sub region and also become a training institution for the various cadres of staff involved in open heart surgery.
Source: Sola Ogundipe; Vanguard News
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