14 CHILDREN RECEIVE FREE HEART SURGERY (PAGE 25, OCT 23)

From George Ernest Asare, Kumasi

Fourteen children, suffering from various cardio vascular diseases, have benefited from a free open-heart surgery performed at the accident and emergency centre at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi.
The surgery was performed by a team of 32 specialists from the Boston Children’s Hospital in the United States of America, in collaboration with their counterparts at KATH.
The team included Physicians, Nurses, Pharmacists and volunteers among others, who paid for their own airfares.
All the children including three who have already been discharged are responding to treatment.
The others, including a 13-year-old girl, who were still at the hospital at the time of going to the press, are likely to be discharged today, according to the leader of the team, Dr. Francis Fynn-Thompson.
The beneficiaries who reside in various parts of the country, were among others who were screened by the medical team when they arrived in the country last week end.
Since the exercise started three years ago, the hearts specialist from Boston Children Hospital and their KATH counterparts, have provided free heart surgery to about 44 Ghanaian children and others from the West African sub region.
According to Dr Fynn-Thompson, who took newsmen around to see the conditions of some of the patients, each of the patients would have paid $8000 for the operation.
He said patients who were operated since the exercise started always come for review " and are all doing well".
He said the team spends about $70,000.00 on each mission, and in terms of medical equipment and supplies, they have spent a total of $1million.
He said all equipment brought in for the exercise are left behind to enhance further exercises in future.
On why they selected Ghana in general and Kumasi in particular, he said "we started this programme because we felt that there were a large number of children with congenital heart diseases who did not have access to specific care that we can provide in the US.
We felt that we could provide that type of care, and also use the opportunity to train local Ghanaian counterpart with the requisite skills to adequately cater for such children".
The Chief Executive of KATH, Professor Ohene Adjei, commended Dr Fynn- Thompson and his team for their humanitarian gesture, saying "their presence is always seen as a blessing because we cannot imagine what would have happened to the children who had benefited from their gesture so far".