Dubai Health Authority commends heart surgeons

This is the 11th such workshop for free heart surgeries that has taken place since the inception of this humanitarian program in 2007. The one-week workshop began on the 26th of January and all the surgeries and cauterization procedures were a success.

The program known as Nabadat, which means heartbeat, is a joint humanitarian initiative organized by the DHA and Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment.

So far, more than 300 children, aged newborns to 19 years old have benefitted from this program. The treatment for Emiratis is sponsored by the DHA and the Establishment sponsors the treatment for expatriates.

HE Essa Al Maidoor, director-general of the Dubai Health Authority, said, "This humanitarian initiative is in line with the vision of our leader His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice- President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. This philanthropic initiative is to support children with congenital heart diseases whose families cannot afford to pay for their treatment. The primary aim of the program is to provide free medical assistance, surgery and post-surgical care for these children."

HE Ibrahim Bu Melha, chairman of the board of trustees of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Charity and Humanitarian Establishment said that this noble initiative is to help alleviate the suffering of these children and their families and aims to provide them with access to excellent medical care.

Dr Obaid Al Jassim, cardiac surgeon and head of cardiothoracic surgery department at Dubai Hospital, said, "In this workshop, we treated 25 children- almost 50% of these children were Emiratis and the remaining were expatriates. Some of the surgeries were very complex because these children have multiple defects which meant that they needed multiple surgeries."

One of the children, who underwent a surgery to rectify a hole in his heart and to correct the position of two of his arteries, is three-year old, British-Portuguese expat, James Edwards. His mother Maria Edwards, said, "We are very grateful to the DHA and Sheikh Mohammed charity for taking such excellent care of our boy. His surgery was a 100% success and hopefully he will no longer need any more surgeries in his life and will be able to lead a normal life. This surgery would have otherwise cost us Dhs3,60,000, but it's not only the expense that is a worry for any parent putting their child through surgery, its also the concern that the child should be in the right hands and that the physician should be experienced. Therefore, we were relieved when James was selected for this workshop because this team has done several surgeries like this one and even more complicated ones."

She said post-surgery James was provided with two full-time nurses. "He knows what is going on. He is very alert, he's waiting to have some cake at the ceremony today and then we will go home."

The next such workshop will take place in June this year and preparations are in full swing to accommodate the most critical patients. "We study the cases that we receive and prioritize them according to the medical condition of the child. We also receive cases from abroad and we have treated children from various countries that come to Dubai for this initiative," said Al Jassim.

Dr Al Jassim said that the Italian team visits the Dubai Hospital for this program three times a year and that on an average 16 surgeries and 14 catherization procedures are performed during each workshop.

The DHA team of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons who performed these surgeries, include Dr Obaid Al Jassim, Dr Ahmed Al Kamali, Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist at Dubai Hospital, Dr Shahraban Abdullah Al Shari, Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist at Latifa Hospital and Dr Sameer Sajwai, Paediatric Cardiac Specialist at Dubai Hospital.