STATISTICS indicate that Zimbabwe's open heart surgeries rate is significantly below the expected target for both children and adults.

Every year, approximately 4,000 children in Zimbabwe are born with congenital heart defects that necessitate open-heart surgery and there is a waiting list of 500 to 600 adults suffering from rheumatic heart disease, who also require the same surgery.

Last week, Zimbabwean and Egyptian cardiac specialists successfully conducted open heart surgeries on 10 children below the age of 14 at Parirenyatwa Hospital.

However, speaking to journalists Friday, head of cardiology Dr Simukayi Machawira said ideally Zimbabwe must be conducting 150 surgeries per year.

"We obviously need a lot of support in terms of manpower, our main limitation has been the lntensive Care Unit (ICU).

"So, ideally we should have an independent cardiothorasic ICU and ideally to keep a single surgeon competent we should be doing 150 open heart surgery annually, so we are looking at doing at least three cases per week to make 150.

"It is obviously going to be a process it's not going to be an event but this is something we are working towards and we are working with our administration here at Parirenyatwa and our head office at Ministry of Health and we will continue to build our relationship with the Egyptian team that has come and we will send a lot of staff for training," Machawira said.

Open-heart surgeries were reinstated at Parirenyatwa Hospital in June last year, following stoppage of the procedure that began in 2018.

Parirenyatwa cardiac specialists were aiming at conducting 60 open surgeries in 2024 and as of last week they had managed to do 40.