Rotary?s ?Gift of Life? helps kids with heart

Belize recently witnessed an outpouring of financial support for a young man in need of a kidney transplant. And while such spontaneous efforts are testimony to the community’s generous spirit, a regular programme for heart patients has been saving lives for years. News 5’s Patrick Jones reports from the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.

Alberto Young, Centennial President, Rotary Club of Belize.
?Every year the Rotary Club of Belize hosts two cardiology clinics for our Gift of Life programme. What those cardiology clinics facilitate is the screening process for the children who will eventually be flown to the United States for heart surgery. These are children born with congenital heart defects.?

Patrick Jones, Reporting
The number of small patients who crowded the waiting room at the KHMH at the start of the two-day clinics, indicates that a good number of Belizean children have heart problems.

Visiting cardiologist Dr. Zahid Amin says while the numbers seem high, there should be no cause for concern, provided adequate early intervention is applied.

Dr. Zahid Amin, Paediatric Cardiologist
?There is some number of patients who are born with heart defects. And that number has never changed anywhere in the world. The reason why we see a lot of patients with heart defect when we come here is because these patients who are seen by their paediatricians or their physicians they know that the patient is not doing well and that?s only time they refer patients to us. So of course we?ll see more patients who have heart defects here as a percentage, as opposed to the U.S. where if they hear a minor murmur they will send the patient to the cardiologist.?

Alberto Young
?They are prioritized based on the doctors? observations and recommendations. They are prioritized and the kids who need immediate surgery are put on that list and they are flown up. We have a mother travelling with two of her children who have been diagnosed with having a congenital heart defect. And they will be flown up shortly.?

Among the children hoping to get a chance to have doctors fix their heart problem is nine year old Shaquille Usher who says all he wants is to be well.

Shaquille Usher
?All I know sometimes when I wake up I feel bad. I can?t move or so.?

Patrick Jones
?Do you think the doctors they could fix that for you??

Shaquille Usher
?Maybe.?

It is that child like hope that fuels parents? attempts to get the help that their children so desperately need. Estelita Carlos and her husband, watched nervously as the doctor checked out their six month old daughter who has holes in her heart; but after the examination, the diagnosis brought cautious relief.

Dr. Zahid Amin
?This baby has a whole between the lower two chambers of the heart and a significant size hole between the upper two chambers. The hole between the lower two chambers of the heart is significant it can make the patent sicker. And luckily that is smaller than before. So that?s good news. The hole between the upper two chambers of the heart probably will need closure but it?s a simple closure we can do that without open heart surgery.?

Estelita Carlos, Mother
?I am Overjoyed. I don?t know how to express my happiness. I really happy because a lot of parents, I had already spoken with them, and they had told me how it takes when surgery and doctors have to go into surgery and I was hoping that doesn?t happen to my daughter.?

Patrick Jones
?So what happens now? What do you do??

Estelita Carlos
?I will be coming back in six months. And I would be regular, constantly checking with them. Because the health of my child us very important to me.?

For parents whose children have benefited from the Gift of Life programme, words are not enough to say thanks.

Rufina Tillett, Mother
?I appreciate that Rotary has been helping me since she has been sick because the expenses are very, very big. Since I am with she sick, the expenses come, Rotary has helping me a lot.?

Alberto Young
?Well its providing a need. A lot of these children first of all the operation is costly. A heart surgery is averaged fifty thousand U.S. dollars and that?s if everything goes well. So it?s providing a need where financially their parents would not be able to afford it. The rotary club has partnered along with other clubs in the United States to provide the service.?

Close to a hundred children benefited from the rotary?s Gift of Life programme since it started. And this year, it is expected another fourteen will be flown to the U.S. for treatment. Patrick Jones, for News 5.

Tomorrow the medical team will be conducting clinic in Dangriga.