Qatar Charity launches congenital heart disease treatment project for 35 patients at UGMC

Qatar Charity, an International Non-Governmental Charity Organization has launched a project to render an intervention for 35 needy Children suffering from congenital heart Diseases.

The launch which took place at the University of Ghana Medical centre on Monday would pave way for continuous collaboration between the facility and Qatar Charity to help the needy in Ghana to secure treatment for heart diseases.

Dr. Mohammed Tawfiq Numan, Board certified Paediatric interventional cardiologist-consultant, who led the Qatar medical team said the general objective of the collaboration was to sow the seed for more collaborative works between Qatar charity and the University of Ghana Medical Centre.

“This is not a come and go, but come and establish and continue the collaboration as we are doing with everybody.” he noted.

It estimated that without such an intervention from Qatar Charity, each child going through a hole in heart condition or any related disease would have to settle an amount ranging between USD $2500 to USD$3000 for treatment.

The aim of the project is to intervene for at least 35 patients between three months and 17 years of age.

The Chief Executive officer, Dr. Darius Osei expressed gratitude to Qatar Charity and their UGMC partners who collaborated to bring the project to that level of success and urged both parties to do their best to maintain the ongoing relations as it offered great opportunities of exchange of skills between the Doctors and nurses of Qatar charity and UGMC.

He said it was also a relief to needy children, burdened with cost of treating sophisticated conditions that would have ended up impeding their growth and development.

Professor Nana-Akyaa Yao, Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist, explained the operational plan of the project.

“We saw about 30 patients on Saturday and On Sunday we saw 10 patients. And out of the 30 and 10 we picked 28 and we are hoping to get a few more in.

“So once we selected them we admitted the first eight. Our plan is to do between seven and eight cases a day. Today it might be a bit less because we started a bit late. At the Moment eight are admitted on the ward. The first are down in the recovery area”.

He said the plan was to start with the bigger children because it was safer.

He said the selected areas of treatment in the project included Atrial Septal Defect & Coarctation of the Aorta and some two diagnostics that had to be done before proceeding.

The Director of Qatar Charity, Mr. Hassan Owda, said the UGMC had the test facilities to start and stressed the need for maintaining the good relations between Qatar charity and the UGMC for mutual benefits.

He said the treatment of cardiac issues was capital intensive and lauded Qatar Charity for the initiative.

He said patients would recover in two days.

On the types of conditions, he mentioned hole in heart, literal sectoral defect, ventricular defect quotation of the aorta and all congenital heart defects and the entire duration for the operation was set to last for a week, with all 35 patients treated and discharged.

Also in attendance were the Director of Medical affairs, Dr Kwame Anim Boamah, Director of pharmacy, Asumadu Amoateng, Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Mrs Judith Asiamah, Director, medical support service, Mr. Abraham Bediako and Director of client service and PR, Mrs Barbara Owusu Hemeng.