by Heart News
Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, January 16th, 2022.
Working with our wonderful team, including Dr. Porisch from For Hearts and Souls Team USA, and Dr. Abdul Mbarouk, our cardiovascular surgeon, alongside the Heart and Lungs Disease team from Ifakara Health Institute, we evaluated 112 children in 2 days. Many of them require Cardiac Cath procedures or heart surgeries very soon. The families were willing to quietly wait in the hallways and doorsteps (at 90 degrees for over 8-10 hours), with 50 of them asked to return the next day after waiting desperately all day for the opportunity to have their precious children evaluated. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the last 5 as we were already late for our ferry back to the mainland. We pray for these children and families, asking for God’s protection until we can come back and evaluate them.
We encountered many severely malnourished children, even more so than on previous missions, yet their families love them dearly and are kind and grateful despite the difficulties they face. It is universal that parents all over the world will do anything for their children! We are reminded to be incredibly grateful for all that we and our families have been blessed with. We pray that we will be back here soon to perform procedures on these children.
Benjamin Mkapa Hospital, January 18th, 2022
This is our fourth mission in Dodoma, where we are endeavoring to build the congenital heart program for catheterizations and surgeries. Over two days (January 17th – 18th, 2022), we evaluated only 32 children. However, this allowed for extensive meetings with hospital administrators on how to advance the program and plan for the upcoming mission. The smaller number of patients enabled plenty of teaching opportunities with the local team that we are assembling to develop this program. They are a great team and very eager to learn.
Our long-term goal is to teach them to be self-sufficient and able to treat more children independently every day. That should be the legacy we all strive for! The highlight of the day was the three patients who came for their follow-up visits after undergoing procedures; they are all doing very well – “little kisses from Heaven.”
Bugando Medical Centre, January 18th, 2022
Another very long day of screening – We evaluated 42 patients on day 1 and another 12 in 2 hours on day 2, totaling 194 children in 5 days. We identified 23 for catheterizations and 18 for surgery appropriate for our next mission. Now, we face the difficult task of prioritizing them for the next mission, as we cannot accommodate that many in one mission. Many more complicated cases will need to find a way to be sent to another country.
The most heart-wrenching part of these screenings is identifying so many patients who are no longer operable because they went undiagnosed or uncorrected for too long and breaking that sad news to their families. Hopefully, screenings like this and teaching the local physicians to diagnose early will make these rare cases in the future.