In an interview, veteran cardiovascular and thoracic
surgeon Dr Wilfred Muteweye said potentially life-saving surgery and other
procedures for heart patients will resume soon.
“The open heart surgery programme is continuing after a
break in December and part of January. The cumulative number of cases is now 22
patients. We lost a total of three patients, the other 19 are doing well,” he
said.
“We continue to have support from the Government. None of
our patients are paying for the surgeries. We are planning to start doing open
heart surgery for children this year, probably in July-August. Our target for
this year is to do a minimum of 60 open heart surgeries.”
Zimbabwe resumed open heart surgery at Parirenyatwa Group
of Hospitals last June after the services were stopped in 2018.
From 2018 to 2023, patients had to fork out huge sums of
money to seek treatment in South Africa, India, Kenya, Italy, Sudan and other
countries offering open heart surgery.
Health experts say a heart operation in India costs
anything between US$8 000 to US$15 000 depending on the complexity of the case.
In Zimbabwe, open heart operations are done free of charge.
The country has between 500 and 600 adult patients with
rheumatic heart disease awaiting surgery while about 4 000 children are born
every year with congenital heart deformities that need open heart surgery.
“We have the capacity to conduct these operations and even
more complex heart surgery. We are gradually building up our capacity and our
team is becoming more efficient,” Dr Muteweye said.
“The operation times are now shorter, that is the time when
the patient is on the operating table, and the average stay in the intensive
care unit has also become shorter.”
The Government is supporting the provision of this vital
heart service to help address the significant backlog of people awaiting heart
treatment.
“As for rolling out the programme, at the moment we have
three cardiac surgeons working in the public sector and the three of us make a
good team for one centre,” said Dr Muteweye.
“Cardiac surgery requires team work, one surgeon can
quickly burn out. However, as we get more trained surgeons, we will roll out
open heart surgery to other parts of the country.
“For now, with the team that we have, we want to strengthen
and perfect it so that when the programme spreads to the rest of the country,
the new centres won’t have to have teething problems. They will just build on
the foundation that we would have laid.”
The Zimbabwean team is made up of well-trained surgeons,
anaesthetists, perfusion and critical care cadres.
Zimbabwe has a history of heart operations that dates back
to 1959.
“The first case of open heart surgery in Zimbabwe was
reported in 1959. The surgeons then (Dr NJ Micklem and Dr GVS Wright) did not
use a heart-lung machine but used external body cooling methods to stop the
heart and reduce the metabolic rate,” Dr Muteweye said.
“They were able to successfully operate on a 15-year-old
boy who had a diseased pulmonary valve. In the 1970s and 1980s, a philanthropic
team from Loma Linda University, California, US, used to visit Zimbabwe and
they would do open heart surgery.
“The team then managed to set up the local team which
operated from 1988-92. The open heart surgery programme became a kind of
permanent feature from 1994, being run by the likes of Dr David Chimuka and Dr
William Mahalu.
“However, in 2003, the programme ceased due to lack of
foreign currency to purchase the consumables. Over 400 patients had benefited.
“In 2016, the programme resumed under the leadership of Dr
Chimuka and ran until October 2018. Again the reason for cessation was
difficulties in procuring consumables. On June 22, 2023, we operated on the
first of the 12 patients that we have done so far. The current resumption has
been led by Dr Simukayi Machawira.”
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death
globally with more than 19 million deaths per year reported, according to a
report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Globally, heart disease-related deaths increased from 12,4
million in 1990 to 19,8 million in 2022.
Health experts say the regions of Asia, Europe, Africa and
the Middle East are estimated to have the highest burden of deaths due to heart
related diseases, with high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, dietary risks
and air pollution being the leading causes. Herald
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