Twenty-Eight children with heart defects received free heart surgery from a team of Belgian surgeons at King Faisal Hospital, Kigali.

The surgeries, sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Rwanda Social Security Board, commenced on November 22 and ended yesterday.

The Belgian surgeons, part of a team from Chain of Hope, a children’s charity that carries out heart surgeries in developing countries, did catheterisation procedures on 15 children and performed open-heart surgery on 13.

Dr Thierry Sluysmans, a cardiologist with Chain of Hope team, said it was a pleasure to make a difference in the lives of different families.

"We are pleased to operate on these patients as saving a life makes a difference toward families. When a child is operated on, it gives a huge relief for the family, which is the most important thing for us,” Dr Sluysmans said.

Lauding the Rwandan surgeons who worked with the Chain of Hope team, Lise Vandendriesche, the project manager of Chain of Hope, said their first objective was training the local team so that it could be able to carry out similar operations in other parts of the country.

"The purpose of our organisation is to contribute to the improvement of access of health services to all children regardless of their economic status or even country of origin”, she said.

Chain of Hope teams work in both Africa and Latin America.

Dr Emmanuel Rusingiza, a paediatric cardiologist at University Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK), said Chain of Hope team not only operates locally but sometimes takes children to Belgium based on the nature of the heart complication.

The exercise, which has existed since 2007, is part of the King Faisal Hospital, Kigali, cardiac surgery and catheterisation programme, in partnership with the Ministry of Health.

In the last eight years, Chain of Hope team has carried out approximately 130 pediatric interventions in Rwanda.Lucy Nyirabwiza, a mother of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy, said her son’s survival was miraculous.

"My son had a heart problem which I discovered when he was a year old. This caused a lot of difficulties to our family but I thank this team for saving our son’s life,” Nyirabwiza said.

"My son’s life was hanging by a thread and I had lost all hope. But God was on my side, my son was operated on and he is now fine and healthy. Ever since he was operated on he has never been the same; he is now a strong boy.”

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