The University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) and medical team of Apollo Children’s Hospital, Chennai, India, have concluded another round of open heart surgery on three children.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Thursday, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Professor Abdulwahab Olatinwo, said two children who were operated upon during the first open heart surgery seven months ago and the new set of three children were in good health.
The age brackets of the children operated upon, are between four and nine, while the first set of children were females and the second set were all males.
Professor Olatinwo, who said that an average of 1,000 out of one million children in the country have heart-related problems, added that the children could die before adolescence if nothing was done to correct the ailments.
He revealed that open heart surgical operations cost about N700,000 and N1.8 million on a child, adding that, “unfortunately, most parents of the patients cannot afford this amount of money.”
He, therefore, called on well-meaning Nigerians and philanthropists to fund cost of operating on some other patients to enable the hospital to help more suffering Nigerians.
The CMD stated further that the exchange medical programme between the teaching hospital and Apollo team of India would afford more staff doctors the opportunity of foreign training, adding that it was also one of the ways to give back to the society.
He revealed that two staff doctors in the hospital were undergoing training in the India hospital, adding that they would soon join their counterparts upon completion of their studies to man the Cardiac Catheterisation (Cathlab) laboratory, which is being built in the hospital for open heart operation.
Source: Tribune News
