admin
Lynn Munjanja Herald Correspondent
A team of three Italian medical specialists is in the country to look at setting up a cardiac centre in Zimbabwe that can provide high-end medical care for SADC heart patients and top-level training for specialist doctors.
The specialists who arrived on Sunday, and have so far given free medical services to patients at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in Harare, are from Salam Centre, a cardiac surgery based in Khartoum, Sudan, which is run by Emergency, an international non-governmental organisation head-quartered in Milan, Italy.
They are in the country until next Sunday and will also be looking at selecting Zimbabwean patients for their Sudanese operation.
Emergency regional programme director, Dr Luca Rolla, said they were looking forward to working with the Ministry of Health and Child Care on the establishment of the centre.
“We hope to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Government to make a more efficient centre for patients in need of heart surgery in Zimbabwe,” Dr Rolla said. “This is our first time here, and we have been visiting patients that we assisted in the past years and everything has been going on well.”
He said the Sudanese facility had so far operated for free on 42 Zimbabweans suffering from heart ailments, who were referred from other centres.
“Up to now we have operated on 42 patients without facing any challenges,” said Dr Rolla.
Furthermore, doctors keen on honing their skills are expected to benefit from the envisioned centre.
“We are also offering training opportunities for young doctors in the cardiac field who would like to increase their experience in cardiology,” he added.
“We are not only here to select patients, but we also want to establish relations with authorities to develop training opportunities for Zimbabwean doctors in our centre. And, after that they will come back to their country.”
Head of cardiothoracic surgery at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, Mr Simukai Machawira, said they were excited with the programme as it would make a difference on the medical landscape in Zimbabwe.
“This is a very good programme that heralds a new chapter in heart surgeries in Zimbabwe. And, we are interacting for the first time with this group which is from Italy.
“We are building a relationship whereby they are going to be training our people, and hopefully in the long run we might end up having a cardiac centre for Zimbabwe,” said Mr Machawira.
“For now we have four surgeons training in South Africa, and it is our hope that once we start doing open heart surgery they come back and practice locally.”
Some of the patients who were waiting to have their medical check-ups expressed joy, saying the programme had benefitted them since they could not afford the expenses associated with heart surgery.
One of them, Grace Mapatizire, who had brought her 17-year-old son, Lincoln Nhongo, said she was relieved as she had no money to settle the bills.
“I am elated. I could not afford the bills, so this programme has given me a vein of hope. My son started off with malaria-like symptoms in 2018,” she said.
“We took him to a nearby hospital where we discovered that he had a heart problem.”
Florence Havadi, who was operated on in Sudan three years ago, and has been receiving free medication since then, was equally happy.
“I was operated on in 2018 at the Salam Centre in Sudan for free, since I did not have the US$20 000 required to go to South Africa for the operation. I have been on free medication for three years now,” she said.
In view of the high incidence of heart diseases in African countries, and the lack of adequate healthcare facilities, the Salam Centre offers specialised heart operations, with the aim of establishing itself as a regional hub for cardiac surgery, serving Sudan and bordering countries.
It was built by the architectural group TAM, a collaboration which also saw the construction of the Port Sudan Paediatric Clinic.
The organisation has also run a free paediatric centre within the Mayo Refugee camp, on the outskirts of Khartoum since December 2005, and a paediatric centre in Port Sudan since 2011.
Online Reporter