Children given love at Rotary’s heart clinic
Twice annually the Rotary Club of Belize holds free heart clinics for children with heart disease. Yesterday and today it concluded the last of its clinics for 2009 at the Southern Regional and Karl Heusner Memorial Hospitals respectively. The programme is made possible through Rotary fundraisers with voluntary services provided by the visiting doctors and the hospitals. For the doctors, it’s a gratifying feeling being able to help and for people like Beverly Reyes, whose two young children underwent open heart surgery five years ago, that help has been immensely appreciated.
Beverly Reyes, Mother of Heart Surgery Patients
“I get fi find it out when my lee bwai mi four years old. Dah den I get fi find out dat di two ah dehn dat have wah murmer, which dah wah hole eena di heart. And she need fi get wah surgery as quick as ih cud. My lee bwai never mi di suffer from nothing. He never have no complaints. Only she mi di complain dat she mi have wah tiredness and wah headache. When ih complain bout di headache I mi bring she by doctor and di doctor tell me dat ih heart noh di beat normal, ih heart di beat sideway.”
Arisia Reyes, Open Heart Surgery Patient
“I usually complain bout headache and things like dat but no headache. I could ride long distance now and play softball, which I couldn’t have done.”
Marion Ali
“No special diet?”
Arisia Reyes
“No, no special nothing, thank God.”
Dr. James Henry, Paediatric Cardiologist
“We get paid in the smiles and seeing the kids running around the area. It’s well worth it. I look forward to come and do it every year.”
Marion Ali
“You’ve had a high success rate with these children going in under the knife and coming out to live normal lives?”
Dr. James Henry
“Yes, as you can tell, I’m a little bit older so I’ve been doing this a long time and the surgical results now are just so much better than what they used to be. I’d say ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of the kids come in and they’re fine.”
Yvette Burkes, Director, Rotary’s Gift of Life Programme
“If your a doctor, if your pediatrician, if your regular child care clinic, they say you know what you might have a murmer, you might have a heart condition, we are inviting those parents please come and check now. Find out what’s wrong now. You have this opportunity through the blessing of God, but also through the fantastic partnership that we have with our various people such as our Tampa group, our Maha group and all the other places that we work with, we are able to access care that otherwise would not have been available to us.”
Marion Ali
“But at the end of the day no child is turned away.”
Yvette Burkes
“Certainly not from the clinics. We will see every child and even those who do not need surgery will have the benefit of a proper diagnosis, proper management, proper prescriptions to manage their case, even the very few that we absolutely cannot help.”
Rotary’s next clinics will be held early in 2010 and will be announced.
