Issued by Department of Health
5 August 2008
The first cardiac unit in the history of Namibia was officially inaugurated at Windhoek Central Hospital by the State Presidents of South Africa Mr Thabo Mbeki and Namibia Mr Hifikepunye Pohamba during a visit by the South African government on Monday (today).
The inauguration followed the SA-Namibia head of state economic bilateral commission on trade and industry, agriculture, energy, the environment and tourism, science and technology, and transport and communication, which took place earlier this morning.
The unit, a joint initiative between the two countries, has been successfully completed following a request from Namibia President Hifikepunye Pohamba to President Thabo Mbeki for South Africa's assistance in establishing a cardiac unit that would provide comprehensive care for heart disease.
In response to this challenge, the Minister of Health of South Africa Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang assembled a team of surgeons from two public hospitals in Cape Town to assist the Minister of Health Mr Richard Kamwi of Namibia to set up the cardiac unit, the first in the country, and the third in the African continent after South Africa and Egypt.
The cardiac unit consists of two wings, five intensive care unit beds, 12 inpatients beds, monitors and a Cath-Lab. All these units are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. Previously, Namibian heart patients would be flown to South Africa and Kenya for treatment, an exercise that was not only expensive to both the patient and the State in terms of resources, but also had emotional drain effect on those that had to travel miles away from home.
So far, nine heart surgeries have been successfully performed on patients aged 14 and 25 years all with rheumatic diseases, since the Windhoek Central Hospital cardiac unit was first opened to the public by the Minister Tshabalala-Msimang and Minister Kamwi on 23th June 2008.This was a historic moment for the country which records more than 3 000 cardiac cases a year, some of them needing surgical correction to improve the quality of their lives.
The operations were performed by a combined team of 13 health professionals from South Africa's Groote Schuur Hospital (a hospital famed for the first heart transplant in 1967), Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, and a team from Windhoek Central Hospital. The surgery involved replacement of heart valves, which were diseased through rheumatic fever complications.
The same surgical team made up of cardiologists, cardio-thoracic surgeons, anaesthetists, theatre and ICU nurses, perfusionists and a paediatric cardiac surgeon, will examine the nine young patients who had cardiac surgery during the week of 23rd June 2008, to mark the official inauguration. In charge of the project are South Africa's Groote Schuur Hospital's Head of Department of Medicine Dr Bongani Mayosi and Department of Health's Deputy Director General Dr Kamy Chetty.
"The most gratifying aspect of the project is the quality of life that will now be enjoyed by these people, who otherwise would have experienced heart failure and generally a poor quality of health," says Minister Tshabalala-Msimang, adding that this project is an excellent example of co-operation between African countries, and proving that Africa can build its own capacity and address issues around the burden of disease and workforce crisis.
Minister Tshabalala-Msimang and Minister Kamwi have also established a Joint Steering Committee, which will co-ordinate, monitor and evaluate the implementation of the project. The Committee has put in place activity timelines to ensure that a sustainable capacity is being built to conduct cardiac surgeries in Windhoek, before South Africa can officially handover the project to Namibia. It is envisaged that this cardiac unit will one day be able to assist not only patients in Namibia, but from the rest of the Continent.
For more information contact Charity Bhengu 0836797424.