THE International Children’s Heart Foundation (ICHF), commonly known as the “Baby Heart Foundation,” has successfully completed 31 pro-bono (free) surgeries with zero mortality on children with heart defects during their two missions in Guyana.Therefore, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the foundation, Dr Rodrigo Soto during a cocktail reception in honour of their success, appealed for the Guyana Government‘s support in

establishing a paediatric and cardiac world-class unit at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
This proposal, said Soto, will seek to accommodate those Caribbean countries with low-resource settings such as Guyana, by providing surgeries to those children with cardiac problems. This will also aid in bridging the gap between Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean as countries will call for collaboration.
In the last six months however, the foundation has received a dozen requests from Venezuela and the north of Brazil, two of Guyana’s continental neighbours, to initiate collaborative efforts. It is this factor that led Soto to believe that Guyana can be the “backbone” of this proposal.
Aside from that, the foundation is aiming to position some of their best surgeons at the hospital, so that local surgeons can benefit from their expertise. This will ultimately help local surgeons to depend less on the foundation’s experts.
Parents in Guyana were faced with the financial burden of sending their children to other countries to seek surgical attention. The Georgetown Hospital has recognised this problem and called for collaboration with the Baby Heart Foundation.
The initiative had then been a little over two years in the making and it was not an easy process. The project however, started way back with the advent of cardiac screening and has been achieving tremendous success. Children from all regions of Guyana have benefited from the project.
Its first success saw 12 successful heart surgeries on children ranging from nine months to 21 years old during its April-May visit this year. Its second mission, late June to July, saw 19 successful surgeries. When accumulated, a total of 31 surgeries were performed with zero mortality.

Soto reflected on the team’s first visit when they saw a large number of sick children, most of whom were dying and needed urgent attention. Aside from that, Soto said the team was heartened by the fact that the hospital along with the Ministry of Health, shared the same vision as the foundation.
Thereafter, the two government agencies and the universal foundation made a commitment to build an Intensive Care Unit and a Cardiac Unit to process and screen patients for the proper delivery of surgeries. However, Soto added that greater commitment was seen from the Ministry of Health and the GPHC during the team’s second trip in stemming the minor problems faced by the team. The foundation has managed to boost the hospital’s performance by imparting their knowledge to the local staff.
The foundation is equipped with a team of heart specialists that ventures into different countries around the world and provides assistance to children with severe heart defects. Guyana is nevertheless, fortunate to have benefited twice from the operations of the foundation.
The team is scheduled to revisit Guyana come November to perform more surgeries, and to maintain its zero mortality with its focus committed to children, specifically those under five years old.