Free heart surgery for 40 more children

Forty children received free heart surgery in the latest workshop of the Nabadat Initiative. Satish Kumar / The National

DUBAI // Forty children with congenital cardiac abnormalities have been given free heart surgery thanks to an initiative set up in the UAE.

The Nabadat – Arabic for heartbeat – Initiative was launched by the Dubai Health Authority and Mohammed bin Rashid Charity and Humanitarian Establishment, to provide free medical care to children whose parents cannot afford treatment.

A team of experts from Saudi Arabia was brought in to perform open-heart surgeries and other procedures over the course of five days this month.

“The aim of this initiative is to reduce the economic and physiological burden faced by families of children with congenital heart problems, provide a new lease of life for the children and help in a transfer of knowledge and skills,” said Dr Obaid Al Jassim, head of cardiothoracic surgery at Dubai Hospital.

The youngest patient was a two-month-old baby who suffered from tetralogy of fallot, which meant the child had four heart defects that could be corrected at the same time.

The eldest was a 12-year-old who had a hole between two chambers in the heart.

Dr Al Jassim said the most complex case was that of a five-year-old who required open-heart surgery to fix a long-standing defect in one of the valves of the heart, which was causing heart and lung problems.

This time, 60 per cent of the patients undergoing surgeries were Emiratis, while the rest were expatriates and visitors.

More than 500 children with congenital heart diseases have undergone life-saving procedures since the launch of the Nabadat Initiative in 2007.

Doctors have conducted 20 free heart surgery workshops, of which 17 took place in Dubai Hospital, two were carried out in Sudan – where 100 children received surgeries, and one in Ethiopia – where 40 surgeries were conducted.