Girl’s heart condition, father’s pain

Mwanza. When Lucy Boniphace, 14, a Standard Seven pupil at Remung’orori Primary School in Serengeti District, was born on December 30, 2003, she was not growing normally compared to other children of her age. Her palms were still as tiny as they were at birth.

Her father, Boniphace Magori, 41, from Remung’orori Village said when his daughter was four months old, she sweated profusely, her heartbeat was fast and had complications in her respiratory system.

Mr Magori told this paper in an interview at Bugando Medical Centre (BMC) on September 30 on World Heart Day that despite efforts to breastfeed her, she was consistently losing weight and started showing breathing complications.

Lucy coughed persistently according to Mr Magori, a condition that prompted him to take her to Serengeti District Hospital.

When he told the doctor her daughter’s health condition, the doctor said it was normal for infants at that age to breathe like that.

However, he said her daughter was prescribed with coughing syrup which she alternated with septrin tablets. He said doctors assured him that his daughter would eventually get better provided he kept giving her medicine.

“I went back home relaxed, knowing that it would all pass,” he said, adding that, surprisingly it did not.

He noted that he kept medication for her daughter throughout as he was told and he purchased similar drugs whenever they were over.

He said his daughter’s condition deteriorated and he rarely sleeping at night, which made him got to hospital again.

He explained that Lucy underwent x-ray screening and physical examination, but the doctors said she had a chest problem that would be cured as long as she took the prescribed drugs. Mr Magori said he kept on visiting other hospitals in Musoma District, but in vain.

“I even tried traditional medicine for my daughter, but in vain,” he said. However, he said luckily, a medical expert at the hospital suggested Lucy could have developed a heart defect and she was referred to BMC for further check up, when she was 3 years old.

At that, Mr Magori said, her daughter lived a painful life and they kept on alternating drugs to treat her health problem, which according to him was not properly diagnosed.

He said Lucy was later diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and doctors said she had a hole in her heart.

“I was surprised, when the doctors told us that, my daughter was born with a heart problem because she never showed any signs of such a problem at birth,” he said, adding:

“I knew my daughter’s life would never be the same again and that it was the end of her.”

But after several counselling sessions by heart specialists at BMC, he accepted his daughter’s situation and he knew she had a reason to live.

He said Lucy was prescribed for anti-failure medicine at BMC to improve her heart until she underwent for a heart surgery after eight months.

The head of cardiothoracic surgery at BMC, Prof William Mahalu, noted that Lucy was diagnosed with a heart congenital defect in 2004 and was prescribed for an open surgery, which was successfully done at the hospital in 2007.

“I think health facilities, where the girl was taken to earlier did not have medical facilities to detect heart problem, especially an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound test for it produces live images of the heart,” he said. He said BMC financed Lucy’s operation at Sh4 million.

The incidence of heart diseases are going up in the Lake Zone, Dr Glory Joseph, a cardiologist at BMC said.

For example, she noted this year, more than 700 children aged between 0 and 15 were screened for heart diseases at BMC and more than 300 of them were diagnosed with different heart defects.

“The majority of these children require open heart surgery to treat their heart problems,” said Dr Joseph.

She noted that a congenital heart defect was a problem with the structure of the heart, which was usually present at birth, it was also the most common type of birth defect that affected the heart by disrupting the normal flow of blood through the heart.

The blood flow, she said could slow down, go in the wrong direction or be blocked altogether.

According to her, many congenital heart defects cause few or no signs and symptoms and are often not diagnosed until children are older.

For his part, Prof Mahalu explained that cardiovascular diseases (heart and blood vessel diseases) affected any one no matter the age and with improved health lifestyle, heart diseases could be averted. For example, he said more 700 people were screened for heart diseases at BMC during the campaign on World Heart Day between September 27 and 29 and that 12 per cent among them were diagnosed with different heart diseases. He said most of the heart diseases were caused by people’s lifestyle through eating foods from animal fat and cooking oil that were high in calories.

He said consumption of calories, smoking, high consumption of alcohol and lack of physical exercise were the leading cause of heart diseases.

“If there’s no form of physical activity, it means the body will be taking in calories in excess,” he said adding that: “Because the body does not throw away the excess, it stores it everywhere around the body-under the skin and in blood vessels leading to their narrowing and with narrowed blood vessels, the heart will be working harder to pump blood around the body, which can lead to heart failure.”

He called upon people to undergo regular screening for heart diseases especially after reaching the age of 40 a condition that could result in early prevention and treatment.

It costs between Sh8-Sh10 million to perform an open heart surgery, the money, which Prof Mahalu said was difficult for an ordinary person to raise.