Queen of broken hearts going strong

NOXOLO Ntshintshi rattles off a slew of heart conditions – coarctation of the aorta, transposition of the great arteries, single ventricular defect, ventricular septal defect, pulmonary stenosis, hypertrophy of the right ventricle – she had to come to grips with in very short time when her daughter was born.

Unakho, now 13, was born with a complex set of heart defects which has already resulted in six surgical procedures, including four open heart operations.

Her first operation was at six weeks at the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital.

The litany of heart conditions suggests a patient who is seriously ill.

And yet, this belies my impression of her young daughter whom I met a short while earlier.

She is a gutsy, energetic self-styled “Queen of Hearts”, visiting the paediatric cardiac clinic at Frere Hospital not because she needs to consult with any of the doctors, but to hand out goodie bags to the other young out-patients.

“She’s looking fine, you don’t see a sick child.”

The Queen of Hearts initiative was her idea, started to simply provide toothbrushes and toothpaste to paediatric patients. She has involved her entire family – as I chat to her mother Noxolo at the end of the outreach at Frere, younger brother Senzelwe,

11, is ferrying empty cupcake containers to the car.

On Thursday, the family reconvenes at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital (CMH) in Mdantsane, to welcome another clinic-full of young patients and for Unakho’s own consultation with the cardiologists.

CMH paediatrician Dr Felicity Goosen says she sees many complex cardiac cases but Unakho “is one of the most complex”.

Unakho’s combination of heart conditions makes her a one-in-half-a-million child. She has not yet received treatment to correct the transposition of

the main arteries (the Nikaidoh-bex procedure, which was performed at RCCH for the first time in 2013).

For her mother it is an emotional morning. “It’s always emotional – she looks fine but you’re never sure what (the doctors) will find during the consultation.”

For now, the cardiology team decide to admit Unakho for further treatment to reduce the size of her ventricles.