You may remember Patience, the young lady from Cameroon who came to Kenya so that we could fix her valve with the balloon procedure. Her family was so overjoyed with the successful result of the procedure that they had a big ceremony to change her name to JOY. She has since married and she and her husband are expecting their first child. It brings us so much JOY to see how well she’s doing.
Exciting Progress in the fight against Rheumatic Heart Disease
We are so encouraged after our recent trip to Ethiopia. While we were there we were able to begin the training of 6 screeners who will be going out to local schools to educate and screen for early signs of Rheumatic Heart Disease. The 6 chosen for the training have a real passion to help improve the health of their communities.
At a local school with our team and trainees
Our team included Amit Sharma a cardiology fellow, Eileen Nemec an echocardiographer and Ron and I. We worked with Michelle Yates a family medicine doctor working at Soddo Christian Hospital in Soddo Ethiopia. She along with a couple Ethiopian doctors will be continuing the training of the screeners and accompanying them on their screenings until they are ready to be independent.
It has been a goal of ours to setup teams of screeners who will go out into the community educating and screening to find the children before they have terrible heart valve damage. With a yearly stipend that we are giving the hospital, they have agreed to allow the 6 new screeners to go out once a week in groups of three to do this vital work. Our future hope is that we will be able to hire teams full time to increase the number reached in the surrounding communities and eventually the entire country. Ethiopia can serve as a model for the rest of the nations plagued by the devastating effects of rheumatic heart disease.
We would like to thank Dr. Michelle Yates and the administration of Soddo Christian Hospital for their commitment to improving the health of their community.
Passing on the Passion
Two of our Patients in Ethiopia.
For decades we have witnessed the catastrophic effects of Rheumatic heart disease. It kills and debilitates young people. This disease affects girls more than boys, frequently killing them during their first pregnancy. For years we have trained teams to screen large groups of young people to look for signs of early disease so that the children can be put on medication to prevent the heart damage. We have also been looking for partners to train in minimally invasive procedures that can reverse some of the damage caused by the disease. We are pleased to say that we have identified partners in Ethiopia and Kenya who are willing to be trained in this procedure. It is an answer to many prayers.
The cathaterization laboratory team in Addis Abba
