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Rejoice Makoni Herald Correspondent
Parirenyatwa Group of Hospital is set to resume open heart surgery on Tuesday next week.
Open heart surgery means that the heart is stopped, blood is bypassed through a machine while a valve or a hole in the heart is being repaired.
The open heart surgery will be done on children with congenital and acquired heart diseases.
Speaking to a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals yesterday, Dr Paidamoyo Magwenzi said the bulk of heart conditions required surgery, hence the need for open heart surgery.
“So far, we offer in-patients and out-patients management,” she said. “We have a clinic that runs every two weeks and we attend to about 30 cardiac patients and admit about 200.
“Once a week our cardiothoracic surgeon conducts one or two operations. Since the Covid-19 pandemic we have been doing operations without opening the heart. We are developing a cardiac catheterisation laboratory of the heart that helps with diagnosis.”
Dr Magwenzi said it was important to have both pediatric cardiologist and pediatric cardiothoracic in terms of man power development.
She said with the resumption of open-heart surgery, it was important to have enough drugs so that lives were not lost due to shortage of medication.
The resumption of heart surgery at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals is good news for the majority of people who cannot afford the high costs of getting medical services outside the country.
Only a few people have been able to come up with the over US$30 000 needed to access theatre services in countries such as South Africa and India.
Some patients have had to resort to seeking donations from individuals and organisations.
Sadly, when the patient does not make it after travelling out of the country for the procedures, the family is left with a huge bill for repatriating the body, thus adding to their financial and emotional trauma.
Zimbabwe established a centre for open heart surgery at Parirenyatwa where children born with heart defects are able to get an opportunity to have them corrected locally.
Online Reporter