JKCI: We’ve performed surgeries on 82 children
What you need to know:
- Twenty-eight of them underwent open heart surgeries while the rest had minor surgeries.
Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI) has operated on 82 children aged above one year.
Twenty-eight of them underwent open heart surgeries while the rest had minor surgeries.
A statement by the JKCI public relations unit note yesterday that the children’s conditions were improving.
On December 12 and 15, JKCI screened 131 children aged above one year in a joint campaign with Saudi Arabia’s Little Hearts.
It was the 15th heart screening camp organised by JKCI with its partners in 2017.
JKCI specialists in partnership with foreign heart surgeons this year performed other 120 major heart surgeries: involving 80 children and 40 adults.
The government has saved more than Sh7 billion it could spend if the patients were flown abroad for surgery, according to the statement. It urged the public to donate blood because the institute faced an acute shortage of safe blood.
The institute has also advised the public to eat healthy and abstain from smoking to avoid putting their lives at high risk of developing noncommunicable diseases such as heart ailments and cancer.
