With about 4 000 children on the waiting list for open heart surgeries, plans are afoot to perform this type of operation in the coming weeks at public health institutions, HealthTimes has learned.

By Kuda Pembere
The open-heart surgeries on children come at an opportune time saving parents the time and money they spend while travelling overseas to get these done.

In an interview with a specialist cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Simukayi Machawira recently, he said they had discussions with pediatric cardiologists to see to it that open heart surgeries will be performed on children.

Plans to perform open heart surgeries on children are there. As we have just resumed the open-heart surgery on adults, we wanted our team to regain their confidence and composure. So now we are confident as from 11 out of 12 surgeries being successful, it is a good number. So, we were discussing with pediatric cardiologists to organize in the coming few weeks some surgeries for children,” he said.

With this procedure done in Zimbabwe, the country could save up to USD50 000 per person seeking a surgery in South Africa, and USD 20 000 in India.