Help for children with heart problems

The almost one dozen children with a hole in their heart who are waiting for a special intervention surgery could soon have the operation done in Barbados at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

On Wednesday, the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust donated over $400,000 in surgical devices to the Paediatrics Department of the Martindale’s Road, St Michael facility that will allow for life-saving acute paediatric interventional cardiology.

Paediatric interventional cardiology is the less invasive endovascular surgery, using the blood vessels in the groin, entering the heart and effecting a palliative circulation or complete cure especially in new-borns with heart disease.

Speaking at a brief handing over ceremony on Wednesday at the Country Club at Sandy Lane, Trustee of the Trust Phillipa Challis described the latest donation as a major one that the organisation didn’t take “lightly”.

She said it was after a year of realising that a children’s cardiac programme was still not started in Barbados despite the island having a highly qualified paediatric interventional cardiologist since 2018, that the decision was taken to acquire the needed tools.

“Due to a lack of Government funding, these specialist items that were needed in many different children’s age sizes could not be afforded. Therefore, in order to kick-start the process we needed to provide the equipment,” said Challis, as she announced the donation of the devices.

“We have parents call the trust on a frequent basis asking for updates on their children’s cardiac operation status. So I do hope those ten children on that waiting list can be treated as soon as you are given theatre slots and the go ahead to proceed,” she said.

Pointing out that “corporate red tape and workplace politics” could frustrate the process of providing critical help for segments of the population that cannot help themselves including children, Challis admitted that over the years it has not been easy working with the QEH.

“We had to champion the World Paediatric Project for four years to get it off the ground and I personally have made many enemies with my outspoken determination,” she said.

However, Challis said she was pleased that the QEH was now in a position to provide the critical treatment to children in need.

Dr Bharat Ramchandani, Consultant Cardiac Interventionist at the QEH, told Barbados TODAY the hospital was still in the process of initiating a paediatric interventional cardiology programme, adding that it would take time to clear the backlog.

“What we are proposing here is to start a programme that never existed in the Caribbean, a sustainable programme in a public institution. So we don’t start at 100 per cent. You need a lot of subspecialty support and skillsets, which fortunately we have in Barbados,” he said, adding that the QEH now has more equipment than it had in the last two years when he first arrived there.

“It is a slow process but eventually we will get there and I suspect that by the end of 2021 we will be in full swing, but it certainly is not starting at 100 per cent and trying to clear an entire backload in two months that has been there for years. That would be irrational,” he added.

He said about one per cent of births in Barbados has a form of congenital heart disease.

“It can be very mild like a small hole in your heart, or we have had babies in the last two years I have been here, born with unstable circulations that need urgent intervention. We have seen it at least four or five times for the time I have been here,” said Ramchandani.

“We have a lot of children who have holes in the heart, tight valves in the heart, those are all things we can take care of – we can stretch valves, we can create new ways for blood to flow, we can close abnormal blood flow patterns that are causing the child discomfort,” he said.

The Sandy Lane Charitable Trust donation would take care of about 40 per cent of the workload, said Ramchandani, stating that the devices were to specifically close holes in the heart.

He explained that with the technology, surgery and rehabilitation could happen a lot more quickly than the more invasive methods, with minimal discomfort to the child and minimal disruption to school and home life.

(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)