Lubumbashi: more than 20 children expected at the 6th edition of cardiac surgery

More than 20 children are expected, in two weeks, at the 6th edition of free heart surgery at the Diamant medical center in Lubumbashi (Haut-Katanga).

At the initiative of a team of American experts from the association called Global Cardiac Alliance, this campaign aims to save human lives and strengthen the capacity of local doctors.

These doctors from Uncle Sam’s country will benefit from the assistance of Congolese people to carry out this open heart surgery.

A man found at the Diamant center was impatiently awaiting the outcome of his six-month-old child’s operation:

“We came for the heart surgery case for our child. As we speak he is in the operating room. I don’t know how to express what I feel right now, because it’s not easy. We haven’t had a normal life since the child was born. Imagine, I’m a little stressed.”

This sixth edition concerns around twenty children from several provinces of the country including Haut-Katanga, Lualaba, Kongo-Central, North and South Kivu and Kinshasa.

For his part, the Director General of the Diamant Medical Center, Karim Tajdin maintained that 39,000 children are born with heart defects each year in the DRC.

Only 4,000 of them reach the age of 17 while others lose their lives, hence the importance, according to him, of these types of surgery to give these children the chance of survival.