Jane Nafula
8 October 2008
Bridget Nabukalu looked healthy during her first weeks of life. But when she clocked two months, her parents started seeing weird symptoms. She was shivering constantly, lost weight and her heart was pounding so fast. Her parents suspected that their daughter's heart was not normal.
They took her to the Heart Institute at Mulago Hospital for a checkup where cardiologists detected a huge hole on Nabukalu's heart.
This condition is called a ventricular septal defect (VSD). Doctors said Nabukalu needed to undergo an open heart surgery abroad. Since her parents couldn't afford the cost of treatment and travelling abroad, they took her back home and left everything to God.
Nabukalu's mother, a housewife and father, a carpenter could not foot bills for an open heart surgery abroad which costs about Shs25m.
However, a ray of hope has come her way. This little girl is among the five lucky needy children who were flown to India on September 24 to under go open heart surgery. The treatment and travel costs were met by the Indian Association in Uganda in collaboration with Narayana Hrudalaya, Bangole, and a top cardiac hospital specialising in cardiology and paediatric care in India.
Other children were; Bridget Anzao from Masindi, Tony Mullo from Wakiso, and Pius Mwidde from Jinja and Amos Wailagala from Tororo.
The Chairman of the Indian Association in Uganda, Mr Naren Mehta says the association is committed to supporting needy Ugandans.
Ms Beatrice Nampera whose four year old son, Tony Mullo is among the beneficiary children said, "I'm so happy. I have been stuck with this child since 2004 when he was diagnosed with heart disease."
Mullo too, suffers from 'Patent ductus arteriosus' (PDA). PDA is a heart defect where in a child's dustus arteriosus fails to close after birth. Symptoms are uncommon but in the first year of life a child may present increased work of breathing and poor weight gain.
For Mr Francis Izama, a primary school teacher from Masindi, the free heart surgery to be offered to his daughter Bridget Anzao is the best gift he had received in life.
Dr Prakash Patel of the Fertility Endoscopy Clinic says heart defects in both adults and children can be acquired or congenital (born with). Dr Patel says congenital heart disorders are mainly caused by maternal infections like rubella in the first three months of pregnancy or abnormal sperms or ovaries.
Rubella which is also known as the German measles is an infection caused by rubella virus which can pass through a pregnant woman's blood streams to infect her unborn baby. He says, one in every 100 children in Uganda is born with minor heart infections while one in every 1,000 is born with major congenital disorders like PDA that require surgery.
Apart from the congenital conditions, some children acquire heart disorders after birth. Acquired heart disorders may be caused by diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, stress, smoking, and excessive consumption of alcohol among others.
Dr Patel says since people with heart defects take long to present symptoms, it is advisable for parents to test babies for various diseases during the first week of life.
A consultant physician at the Uganda Heart Institute, Mulago, Dr Tom Mwambu says that although majority of the patients who turn up for treatment at the Heart Institute are adults, heart complications are increasingly becoming common in children.
Dr Mwambu says the general out patient heart unit at Mulago which is held once a week sees over 60 patients per day which was not the case before.
"We do about 40 echo- cardiogram where we look at the heart and see how it is working and the flow of blood," he says.
The echocardiogram allows doctors to evaluate heart murmurs, check the pumping function of the heart, and evaluate patients who have had heart attacks. Dr Mwambu attributes the increasing number of heart patients to improved capacity of cardiologists as well as increased awareness that has seen more people go for check-ups and treatment.
"Those days, heart patients would die without people knowing the cause of their death because they did not go for a heart check up. But now, the moment people experience a chest pain they rush to the hospital for a check up," he says.
He also says that change in lifestyle like people feeding on junk and fatty food like snacks, chips and chicken without doing any exercise is exposing many to risk factors. The Uganda Heart Institute has been operating about 200 children with heart defects every year. Another 200 complicated cases were being referred abroad because Uganda lacked the necessary equipment to carry out open heart surgeries.
The institute performed the first open heart surgeries on a few patients last year where 15 heart patients were successfully operated.
The Deputy Director of the Heart Institute, Dr John Omagino, says the Institute has acquired all the necessary equipment and a strong medical team and that more patients who need to under go open heart surgery would be brought on board.
The institute hopes to start performing open heart surgeries on a bigger number of patients starting this October.
When all the open heart surgeries are done here, Uganda would be able to save over shs350m, on the amount money spent in travel expenses, accommodation, insurances among other costs involved in taking patients abroad.
Recently, the Uganda Heart Foundation embarked on raising funds to enable the Heart Institute operate 150 children suffering from rheumatic heart disease. Rheumatic heart disease is a condition in which the heart valves are damaged by rheumatic fever.
Surgery is recommended to replace the damaged valves. About 50 out of the 150 children to undergo operation have been on the waiting list for the last five years.
The President of the Heart Foundation, Mr Robert Ssebunya says that while the Uganda Heart Institute has the professional capacity to handle heart complications of a complex nature, most heart patients are taken abroad for treatment due to the lack of consumables (materials used in the operation). Those who can't afford the costs have had to stay home and tussle it out with the disease.
Mr Ssebunya however says that the heart foundation is currently mobilising funds to purchase consumables that would be used on children who are to under go operation.
"There are quite a number of patients who cannot afford the cost of treatment abroad and that is why we have been fundraising regularly to support the Uganda Heart Institute carry out such operations," he says.
According to Mr Ssebunya, each operation will require consumable materials worth $5,000 (about Shs8m) compared to $15,000 per child abroad.
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