First heart op in N West is a ‘success’
The first-ever heart operation in the North West province was carried out successfully at Ferncrest Hospital in Tlhabane near Rustenburg on Friday, the provincial health department said yesterday.
Spokesperson Thapelo Lekgethwane said the operation was done in the hospital’s new operating theatre, which was recently officially opened by health MEC Magome Masike.
The operating theatre is a partnered initiative between the North West department of health and Netcare.
Lekgethwane said the operation was “open-heart surgery for an atrial myxoma, which is a benign growth within one of the chambers of the heart called the atrium”.
The growth had to be removed from the heart chamber as it was affecting the functioning of the valves.
“The patient’s heart was opened to remove the growth.
“To do this the patient was put on a heart bypass machine to keep his blood circulation going while the cardiac surgeons worked to excise the myxoma,” Lekgethwane said.
“The patient is currently in a stable condition and is under observation.”
Masike said: “This success is testimony to the fact that the province has managed to recruit and retain the best specialists available.
“We will continue to work hard to retain them, recruit more and address the chronic challenge of [the shortage of ] health professionals, particularly specialists.
“It took more than six years for us to be where we are today.
“When we started negotiations with Netcare, I had in my mind the urgent need to save the lives of our people, which is more important than anything else.
“I said we needed state-of-theart facilities to deal with emergencies.
“Hardly a few months after I said those words we did our first-ever heart operation in the province,” said Masike.
The clinicians involved in the operation were Dr Babu Kurian, Dr Kekana, the cardiac surgeon, and Dr Ngobeni, who was the anaesthetist. – ANA
I said we needed state-of-the-art facilities to deal with emergencies. Hardly a few months after I said those words we did our first-ever heart operation in the province. Magome Masike North West health MEC