IT IS a Christmas gift that is being delivered four weeks early: a healthy heart for 16 children who have had complex cardiac lesions since birth.
Starting today, a medical mission, coordinated by a team from Chain of Hope, United Kingdom, will partner with local practitioners in conducting cardiac surgery on the group of children at the Bustamante Hospital for Children. The surgeries will take place over four days.
Dr Lambert Innis, chief of anaesthetics and intensive care at the hospital, told The Gleaner that the four days of surgery would help to reduce the list of nearly 300 Jamaican children who are awaiting heart operations.
"Some of the parents see it as an early Christmas," Innis told The Gleaner.
Chain of Hope has been assisting the Bustamante Hospital for Children with heart surgeries since 2000. Innis said he still remembers the first one, which took place on November 8, 2000.
"I remember it as if it was yesterday ... . That little girl is doing well at school now," the doctor said.
Full waiting list
Each year, about 200 Jamaicans are born with congenital heart disease. Innis said that a little more than 100 of these children require surgery. However, the Bustamante hospital, on its own, is only able to do one, sometimes two, of these operations weekly.
He told The Gleaner that it was very important for Chain of Hope to "keep coming and to come more often, and for the programme at the Bustamante Hospital to grow so that we can start operating on more than two cases per week.
"This is something that we look forward to every year. Whenever they come, we build on the experience we gain from the year before," Innis said.
Not only are the Chain of Hope doctors volunteering their services, but they are taking with them pharmaceuticals and medical equipment which will be donated to the hospital.
While the hospital prepared itself for the operations, internationally acclaimed artiste, Shaggy, spent Sunday relaxing with the young patients and their parents ahead of the surgeries. The entertainer, who has made a habit out of donating equipment to the hospital, was part of a fund-raising effort in the UK last week to fund Chain of Hope's visit.
The children selected for surgery range from three months to 12 years old.
daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com