Twenty children and four adults underwent open-heart surgery, whereas nine underwent therapeutic cardiac catheterisation by medical volunteers from Australia and Belgium.

This took place on Wednesday during a one-week open-heart surgery at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali.

The surgery was conducted under the support of Operation Open-Heart from Australia and Chain of Hope from Belgium.

The board chairperson of King Faisal Hospital also Executive secretary, National commission to fight against HIV/Aid (CNLS), Dr. Agnes Binagwaho said the two types of operations were carried out successfully.

She added that the hospital is now equipped enough to become a centre for heart operation in the East African region.

The head of the Australian medical delegation and a heart surgeon, Dr. Russell Lee said his team did not find any complications.

Open-heart surgery involves stopping the patient’s heart and using a by-pass pump to do its work while the patient’s heart is operated upon.

On the other hand, the therapeutic cardiac catheterisation treats congenital heart defects without surgery and without opening the chest.

Meanwhile Dr. Joseph Mucumbitsi, a paediatrician at King Faisal Hospital said Rwanda would become a regional cardiac centre by 2012 since the hospital has two heart-lung machines each costing US$2million.

The volunteer surgeons said each operation would have cost around Frw30million.

The Chain of Hope team has visited Rwanda twice to carry out cardiac screening programmes.

This time the team came to offer cardiac treatment to the formerly screened patients.

Marie Louise Mukamudenge, the mother of Frank Habiyambere, one of the children who were operated, said that she only paid Frw210,000 for hospital bills without including the operation charges.

The successful open-heart surgery follows the first carried out in April 2006 which saw 14 children and 4 adults successfully operated on at King Faisal Hospital.

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