By
Kemo Cham
Health authorities in Sierra Leone have described as
successful the first major heart surgery conducted in the country.
Nine patients benefitted from a pro bono service
involving the implantation of pacemakers in their hearts, thanks to two
US-based charities – ‘Pace4Life’ and the ‘My Heart, Your Heart’, a project of
the University of Michigan. The exercise which was conducted between Monday and
Tuesday at a Freetown-based private hospital, Choitram, was done in
collaboration with a local Sierra Leonean cardiologist, Dr James Russel. The
surgeons were flown from the US and UK.
The beneficiary Patients were drawn from the country’s
main referral hospital, Connaught and Choitram Hospital, which is an Indian-run
facility.
A pacemaker is a small electrical devise that helps
the heart to contract in the event a patient has heart block or if the main
electrical center of their heart is not providing proper electrical signal to
get it beat normal.
The operation involves inserting the device in the chest
box with a cable connected to heart so that it helps control abnormal heart
beats. It uses electrical pulses to prompt the heart to beat at a normal rate.
The procedure, according to medical authorities,
costs about US$7,000 in the developed world. Very few Sierra Leoneans can
afford that. And those diagnosed with the condition are required to travel
overseas as the service is also not available locally, hence addition of the
cost involved.
According to Dr Russel, who is also a physician and
heads the department of Cardiology at the Connaught Hospital in Freetown, the
most common causes of this condition among blacks is hypertension. He said if
someone lives with the condition for a very long time without proper control it
results to heart block, which is manifested in the form of dizziness, extremely
tiredness and collapse.
“The danger is that you can die suddenly,” Dr Russel
said.
“People with such conditions have no other remedy
other than pacemaker,” he added in an interview on Wednesday.
The renowned Sierra Leonean cardiologist appealed to
the Pan-African Society of Cardiologists, which is providing the service in
partnership with charities and doctors in the US and UK, to include Sierra
Leone to the list of countries in Africa to benefit from it.
KC/APA
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