Fifteen children out of 50 who attended a screening camp today at Ganesh Das Hospital here were chosen to receive free surgery and intervention at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai and Guwahati, informed Dr CS Muthukumaran, paediatric cardiologist at a press interaction today.
Five are very complex cases, he added. Three will be treated in Guwahati and the other 12 in Chennai.
The Department of Paediatric Cardiology and Paediatric Cardiac Surgery of Apollo Children’s Hospital Chennai and Apollo Hospital Guwahati in collaboration with Meghalaya’s Directorate Health Services today organised a free paediatric cardiac screening camp.
The screening camp was held for below poverty line (BPL) children up to 16 years of age, with the main objective to reach out to poor children requiring life saving heart surgery.
One of the most common birth defects is heart disease, which is mainly caused in young children because of genetics or the consumption of alcohol by the mother, Dr Muthukumaran said.
The reason that Meghalaya has a high number of children with heart disease is due to a lack of facilities in the health sector, the doctor added.
Apollo Hospitals is hoping to help clear the backlog in heart disease surgery cases and even develop a programme in government hospitals to help prevent it in the first place.
When asked about the financial support to those BPL children who are going for surgery, Dr Muthukumaran said that this will come through various state and central health insurance schemes.
Dr Muthukumaran informed that the paediatric cardiac programme is run with the help of donations from the Save a Child’s Heart Initiative (SASHI) Trust, run by Apollo Hospitals, crowdfunding platforms and the kindness of the Rotary Club of Madras East (RCME).
