BY REGINALD KANYANE
MEC for health department in North West province, Dr Magome Masike has said they were excited at the news of a successful first ever heart operation in the province.
The heart operation was done at the new theatre that was recently opened at Ferncrest Hospital in Rustenburg. The theatre is a partnership initiative between the North West Department of Health and Netcare.
“The patient Sarel de Beer presented to the surgical department at Tshepong Hospital with a threatened limb due to an embolic phenomenon. It was open heart surgery for an atrial myxoma, which is a benign growth within one of the chambers of the heart called the atrium.
“This tumor or growth had to be removed as it was affecting the hearts valve functioning. The patient heart was opened to remove the growth. To do this the patient was put on a heart bypass machine to keep his blood circulation going whilst the cardiac surgeons worked to excise the myxoma,” Dr Magome Masike said.
He said the patient was ferried to Rustenburg on Wednesday for operation.
“The success is a testimony to the fact that the province has managed to recruit and retain the best specialists. We will continue to work hard to retain them. We will also recruit more and address the chronic challenge of health professionals especially the specialists.
“It took more than 6 years for us to be here today. When we started negotiations with Netcare, I had in my mind the urgent need to save the lives of our people which are more important than anything else. I said we needed state of the art facilities to deal with emergencies because if someone is stabbed in the heart you need to attend to it immediately to save that person’s life,” Masike said.
He further said: “I also want to send special congratulations to Dr Jithan Koshy who tirelessly and quietly worked with the hospital and the provincial management to get the Service Level Agreement signed and led all the arrangements for yesterday’s surgery.
“The Netcare management team and our Head of Clinical Services Dr Andrew Robinson also deserve special mention for the contribution they made. It was all a team effort and proves that working together we can achieve a lot in our quest for delivery of quality health care services to our people,” he said.
The clinicians involved in the operation were Dr Babu Kurian, Dr Kekana (the Cardiac Surgeon) and Dr Ngobeni (the Anaesthetist).
The patient is currently in stable condition and is kept for observation.
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