- Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir on Monday officially opened the week-long Free Heart Surgery Camp.
- He said the Cath Lab launched last year by his predecessor Hassan Joho has been serving, not only Mombasa, but the entire Coast region.
About 60 children will benefit from free heart surgeries to be conducted at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital in Mombasa.
This is after the county government of Mombasa partnered with the Sharjah Charity International organisation to bring together 14 specialist doctors to conduct the procedures.
The doctors drawn from the United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Netherlands will conduct the heart surgeries.
Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir on Monday officially opened the week-long Free Heart Surgery Camp as he also toured the Cath Lab and the main theatre at the hospital.
“We are happy for the partnership that will see needy cases benefit from the surgeries at no cost. This is a relief to the beneficiaries as the surgeries are quite expensive with one costing about Sh1.5 million,” Nassir said.
He said the Cath Lab launched last year by his predecessor Hassan Joho has been serving, not only Mombasa, but the entire Coast region.
“We have cases from as far as Baringo coming here for the specialised treatment, for us this partnership today means a lot not only for the region but the country at large.
Joho while launching the facility last year said the county had invested heavily in the areas of medical infrastructure, equipment and human capital.
He said the facility was going to provide the necessary interventions and solutions in tackling the much needed medical care related to cardiovascular conditions.
“Our goal ultimately is to be a government that takes the lead in providing affordable, accessible and quality healthcare for our people,” he said then.
Dr Iqbal Khandwalla, the Chief Executive Officer of the hospital also lauded the launch of the camp saying the hospital was among the only two public hospitals in the country with the ability to carry out the heart procedures.
“The essence of this camp is that we are able to do cases that could not have been done locally and would require one to go to bigger facilities in Nairobi or travel to India. But because of these camps we are able to do them locally with the assistance of our donors and partners,” Khandwalla said.
Khandwalla said the camp was also meant to train the hospital staff so that soon they will be able to operate on the cases on their own,
He reiterated that together with the hospital’s board, they were working tirelessly to position the hospital as a centralised center for cardiac and cancer cases through minimal access surgeries.
“We appreciate the governor and the partners and donors who have come to work with us, this gives us morale to do more complicated cases,” he said.
Sharjah CEO Abdulhalim Saleh said the process of identifying the 60 beneficiaries began four months ago through medical outreaches conducted in the six counties of the region.
He said from the outreaches conducted, they discovered that there was rampant rises in the number of cardiovascular related cases that remained unnoticed putting the lives of many especially children at risk.
“It is sad that we are reaching such levels without noticing it, however I want to thank the doctors who have sacrificed their time to come and work with us to address the challenge,” Saleh said.
He promised to sit down with the hospital’s board and see how they can address the challenge, adding that the organisation was looking for ways to rope in more partners in future.