A TOTAL of 363 children born with heart defects have been healed at the Sri Satya Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital in Nasese, Suva, since its establishment three years ago.
Hospital director Dr Krupali Tappoo, while highlighting this at the hospital’s third anniversary celebration in Nasese on Thursday, said these were not just 363 lives, but 363 families who had been given hope, faith and had experienced joy and love.
She said the hospital has hosted 20 visiting teams specialised in congenital heart diseases over the course of three years.
“Many defects have been operated on including PDAs, VSDs, ASDs, Tetralogy of Fallot, pacemaker insertion for congenital heart block, TAPVR, AV canal defect repair, pulmonary valvulotomy, mitral valve repair, aortic valve repair, coarctation of the aorta, and the list continues,” Dr Tappoo said.
“As the years progressed, the complexity of the cases also increased and much has been achieved.
“The hospital reached a milestone when the youngest baby to have been operated was a one-week-old infant.”
She said the Sanjeevani team had performed more than 30,051 free echocardiograms at their children’s heart screening centre and also more than 30 public health centres and hospitals including Navua, Sigatoka, Nadi, Lautoka, Ba, Rakiraki, Labasa, Bua, Savusavu, Taveuni, Levuka and Yasawa Islands.
“What is amazing is that the heart screening has reached beyond the borders of Fiji to our Pacific Island neighbouring nations. Our team has gone to these countries to screen the children and identify children who need surgeries.”
She said child recipients of these surgeries were not only from Fiji, but from other Pacific Island nations of Christmas Island, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa and Vanuatu, in the true spirit of ‘one world, one family’.
