Mission to keep those little hearts beating
We can do our bit to help the premier children’s hospital in Sri Lanka achieve its goal of building a dedicated 10-storey centre of excellence for children’s heart health and other critical illnesses. Kumudini Hettiarachchi reports
It is not only a national need but should be viewed as a national priority, for the little beneficiaries would be Sri Lanka’s children with heart trouble as well as any other critical illness. The expertise, skills and care are available in abundance, on par or even better than centres across the world, with the dire need being a building, within the premier Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) for Children in Colombo, to deal with the tiny hearts that are not beating as expected, in all corners of the country.
A dedicated 10-storey building, a centre of excellence for children’s heart health and other severe illnesses, is the vision.
As the poet said, ‘Little drops of water and little grains of sand make the mighty ocean and the beauteous land’, Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist Dr. Duminda Samarasinghe is appealing to everyone to make this vision a reality by giving anything they can spare. (See box for the achievable vision)
“Sri Lankans are ‘givers’,” he says, quoting the country’s top 8th position in the ‘World Giving Index’, quite sure that the target is achievable.
Every rupee contributed to this worthy cause will help, urges Dr. Samarasinghe, requesting not only men, women and children to give of their mite but also schools, non-governmental organizations, institutions and large corporate companies to lend a hand.
The need is Rs. 2 billion for the building with four floors dedicated to more than 3,000 babies, from all strata of life, born with congenital heart disease every year.
“We at LRH need to perform 2,000 heart surgeries and 1,000 catheter interventions every year, for we service the whole nation. Unfortunately, though, we are able to perform only 1,000 heart surgeries and 700 interventions,” he says, adding that when the public makes contributions to such large-scale projects they too become the owners and guardians and not only the beneficiaries. Even in developed countries, such projects get immense public support.
The parents of three from among thousands of children who are going about their routines and leading normal lives -- thanks to the gifted hands and care of the LRH heart team -- are eager to tell their stories to the Sunday Times.
In Katana on Tuesday, it is seven-year-old Shevon who keeps a look out for our vehicle and points out the gate through which we should enter. As we chat to his mother, Samanthi Perera, and her tears flow at the very thought of the agony they went through with the fear of losing her younger son, he climbs onto her lap and looks lovingly at her face.
For Samanthi and her husband, it had been double agony. Their first-born, Shane, who is now 9 years old had been diagnosed with a heart issue when he was about three months. Back then in 2007, the LRH’s Paediatric Cardiac Unit had limited facilities and beds. A date would be given for the intervention but if a criticallyill baby was brought in, the staff would be compelled to use those facilities to save that baby. So in desperation, the family sold whatever they had and begged the benevolence of kith and kin to collect the large sum of money needed to get Shane’s heart repaired at a private hospital.
The second time round, as soon as baby Shevon was placed in her arms after the Caesarian birth, Samanthi realized that all was not right with his heart. The family was devastated and Samanthi was distraught, for this time it was much worse and if they had to pay private hospital bills they would have to sell the very roof above their heads and end up as paupers.
“Puduma manasika peedanayak thibbe,” murmurs Samanthi, adding that there was unimaginable mental trauma.
The hospital rounds began – this time, however, all the necessary tests such as echocardiograms for Baby Shevon were carried out at the LRH.
The LRH heart unit took the family into its fold, while both Dr. Samarasinghe and Paediatric Cardiac Surgeon Dr. Kanchana Singappuli reassured them. “We never had to run after the doctors, they would stop by us and explain everything,” says Samanthi, with tender looks at the statue of Jesus Christ which has pride of place in their home as she showers blessings on the heart team.
Implicit faith, Samanthi had in the doctors and the events are now a very stark but happy memory – Shevon undergoing the first lengthy surgery for a major heart defect plus a hole in the heart in January 2011 and another one two weeks later to close a second tiny hole in his heart.
We leave the home of Shevon after he has recited Sinhala and English poems, told us that he wishes to become an engineer and how fond he is of completing jigsaw puzzles.
Next Sajeewa Priyankara and Sumithra Kumari of Dankotuwa tell us about 10-year-old Sakila and Sushen Ranatunga of Colombo about his beloved son who will turn six in September.
Soon after birth, Sakila would turn blue when he cried and was sent from Negombo Hospital where he was born to the LRH. This was in 2005 and LRH did not have the facilities to perform the necessary interventions and surgery. So the baby was taken to the Cardiology Institute of the National Hospital and then to Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital.
The waiting was unbearable and Sajeewa and Sumithra begged and pleaded for the money needed to attend to his heart at a private hospital. One intervention and two open-heart surgeries at a private hospital and nearly Rs. 1.5 million -- which they could ill-afford – later, Sakila was still constantly ill. They could not collect any more money to do another open-heart surgery that was needed. It was then that Sajeewa and Sumithra heard that LRH had commenced heart operations.
“Since Sakila’s birth, we had been in hospital for 114 days,” remembers Sumithra, while Sajeewa creates the image of the family having to spread a cloth and beg by the roadside if succour had not been forthcoming from the LRH heart team.