‘Why we are now performing open heart surgery’
Medical tourism has been a big challenge in Nigeria’s health sector. Over the years, the wealthy ones in our midst have continued to spend a lot of money on medical treatment abroad having understandably lost confidence in the nation’s health services.
The countries most patronised by those who can afford their services are United States of America, Britain and India, among others.
Successive governments have failed to equip hospitals in Nigeria for them to handle critical health cases like cancer and heart-related diseases which are some of the commonest diseases among Nigerians.
However, against all odds, the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) recently performed open heart surgery. Through collaboration with an India-based Apollo Children’s hospital, Chennai, the UITH successfully performed open heart surgery on two minors.
For the parents of 15-yearold Aishat Jibril, and sevenyear-old Kamalat Balogun, who were successfully operated at the hospital, their joy is limitless. Their hope was eventually restored after despondency has already set in over the conditions of their children who were diagnosed with hole in their hearts.
Alhaji Mohammed Jubril, father of Aisha who hailed from Lata in Patigi said, “I cannot express my joy today because I have already lost hope but I thank the authorities of UITH for bringing my daughter back to life”.
Also, Alhaji Olanrewaju Balogun, who hails from a village in Ifelodun Local Government narrated that their child had been battling with life for over two years without hope of surviving until the much anticipated reprieve came from the UITH.
It was learnt that the two patients were among the four admitted in the hospital for the surgery.
Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Professor Abdulwaheed Olatinwo said that heart-related diseases otherwise known as cardiovascular diseases are common among children especially from poor families; majority of whom lack the financial wherewithal to go for treatment abroad.
He said the university ventured into the programme to assist the poor people whose children are dying because they cannot afford the treatment abroad.
The surgery was conducted on the patients within three hours in conjunction with the team from India. The Apollo Hospital team led by Dr. Neville Solomon voluntarily supported the UITH’s open heart surgery initiative.
Solomon said he lost his father to cardiovascular disease, and his hospital is providing medical services to children suffering from heart-related problems in order to give back to the society.
According to him, his hospital has successfully carried out the surgery on over 2, 000 children suffering from any heart-related disease. He said the hospital partnered with the UITH because of the capacity of the hospital which it found fascinating.
Olatinwo said the hospital spent over N108 million to buy some equipment which the hospital earlier lacked, and it purchased a heart-lung machine which was used during the mission.
He added that the hospital decided “to move into this new realm of service delivery to give succour to helpless patients in the country, and contribute our quota to reversing the current trend of medical tourism to hospitals outside the country and end the associated capital flight”.
He said: “The cardio-thoracic unit of our hospital had been long in existence. It was established shortly after the founding of the hospital and was operated by Professor E.O.O Odelowo and Dr L.O. Giwa. However, due to the unavailability of equipments and supporting manpower their operations have been restricted mainly to the thorax. Complex surgeries to correct defects within the heart to replace damaged heart valves requiring a heart-lung machine couldn’t be carried out.”
Giving further insight into open heart surgery, the CMD, a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology said, “We decided to look into about 15 cases of less privileged patients that were in need of referrals abroad but our target was to look for those with nearly zero mortality ratio. That was how we settled for the cases of Aisha and Kamalat. It was a good start and we will definitely take it up from there”.
According to Olatinwo, after the successful feat, the hospital and its donors contributed 75 per cent of the total cost of the surgeries while the patients paid 25 per cent. The cost of one was put at the sum of N1.8 million.
He appealed to the government at all levels and other public spirited individuals to partner with the hospital to fully equip the cardiac centre to include a cardiac catheterization laboratory. “We have already purchased a heart-lung machine which was used during the recent the recent mission, equipping the cardiac centre is next on the list of things to do. That will cost us about N50 million.”
He stated that the partnership with the Indian hospital has two benefits. “First is that it exposes our patients to the highest quality of surgical care comparable to that which is obtainable anywhere in the world and secondly, it then facilitates skills transfer to the members of our hospital’s cardiac care team such that subsequent surgeries are entirely carried out by them.”