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For the next two weeks, representatives from Cardiac Surgery, Cardiology, Anesthesiology and Nursing will use their skills to help those in need at King Faisal Hospital in Rwanda.
The members of Team Heart departed on Feb. 2 for Rwanda as part of a surgical, screening and training trip, the organization’s fifth to date. Leslie Sabatino, RN, of the Intensive Care Unit at BWH, said the non-profit began in 2007 with a conversation among members of the Cardiac Surgery team about how to lend their skills to set up a program that can serve Rwandans who are desperately in need of life-saving heart surgery. Of the nearly 40 volunteers working in Rwanda with Team Heart, most come from BWH, but there are also nurses from Mass General and other hospitals across the U.S.
“What we’re doing is creating a sustainable program of treatment, training and education,” said Sabatino, one of the founders of Team Heart. “That’s part of the 10-year commitment we’ve made to them.”
Another element of this commitment is the shipping of badly-needed medical supplies to Rwanda. Cecilia Patton-Bolman, coordinator for Team Heart, said that 3,000 pounds of equipment is being shipped to Rwanda. Some of the equipment, such as monitors and IV pumps, is donated, while surgical equipment is loaned and brought back.
Rheumatic heart disease, one of the most common medical problems in Africa, leaves young adults suffering for years on the brink of death as a result of heart valve injury from untreated strep throat. Rwanda lacks the resources to deliver chronic interventions, such as penicillin, and to perform the operations to save the most critical patients. Rheumatic heart disease, also known as rheumatic fever, typically develops two to three weeks after a streptococcal infection. It commonly appears in children between 6 and 15 years old; approximately 20 percent of first-time attacks occur in adults. The illness is so named because of its similarity in presentation to rheumatism.
During the last three years, 100 patients in Rwanda have had heart surgery through the efforts of Team Heart. During this current trip, while in Rwanda, the team will perform around 16 heart valve surgeries for those suffering from rheumatic heart disease and will continue efforts to establish an independent cardiac surgery program. Managing streptococcal infections continues to be key to the success of the program, according to Sabatino. In the fall of 2011, Team Heart launched a collaborative project aimed at managing all aspects streptococcal infections in the district of Gasabo, in the Kigali Province of Rwanda, a district that is poor and includes rural and urban populations.
In its first year, Team Heart brought monitors and IV pumps to King Faisal Hospital, and the staff there has been able to maintain this and other donated equipment. Sabatino said members of Team Heart work with the local procurement team on the ground in Rwanda so they can order their own supplies. The hospital has four operating rooms, a five-bed adult intensive care unit and 140 acute care beds. Sabatino said the facility is now fairly well-equipped, but more help is always needed. “Each year the Faisal nurses do more and more, to the point where last year they were admitting patients themselves with us just overseeing,” Sabatino said.
In addition to the surgeries and donations of medical equipment and medication, last fall Team Heart began screening thousands children for signs of rheumatic heart disease.
“The severity is amazing and the poverty of the patients is profound,” said Patton-Bolman. “It is the fifth trip for several of us. For 30 percent of the team, they have traveled more than twice to Rwanda, have raised funds for the travel and have used vacation time.”
Continued training and education is part of the work of Team Heart. According to Patton-Bolman, a young surgeon working with them will soon be leaving with a scholarship for surgical training to South Africa, which was arranged by Team Heart. The organization also provided a scholarship for a sonographer to receive training in the U.S.
“One of our points of pride is the commitment of anesthesia and surgical education to residents from the Brigham program,” Patton-Bolman added. “We’re training the next generation to do what the clinicians and caregivers do, which is to provide high quality care to these patients.”
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