First ever cardiac centre to be built

Ethiopia is to build its first ever state of the art cardiac centre to tackle “rampant” heart disease in the country. Dr Belay Abegaz, the country’s only paediatric heart surgeon, told IRIN on Monday that the first operations could begin as early as next year. Heart disease is a major killer in Ethiopia and is compounded by massive overcrowding in urban centres. Dr Belay estimated that as many as 200,000 new cases of heart disease occur each year in the country. “Yes children are dying from malnutrition, lack of immunisations, poverty, you name it,” said the surgeon. “But even then heart disease ranks as a top killer in the country. Unfortunately treatment is beyond the reach of parents and the government.” Ethiopia not only lacks the facilities and funding to perform heart operations, it also has just a handful of skilled staff. There are currently less than 10 surgeons who can perform heart operations in the country – and Dr Belay is the only doctor able to operate on children. He said the centre, which is being supported by Addis Ababa University, would also act as a training institute and at least one or two operations could be carried out a day. “So we hope to do something about it until the government or country can afford to take on this problem themselves,” he added. Dr Belay, the board chairman of local charity Children Heart Fund of Ethiopia, currently raises money for children to have heart operations. The Fund has been sending children with serious heart diseases abroad for surgery over the last 13 years. In that time, it has treated and saved the lives of over 550 children with heart disease, Dr Belay said. The charity is looking to raise up to US $1.5 million to establish the centre and has already secured funding to start building the unit. The foundations are expected to be laid in a matter of months within the grounds of the country’s largest hospital, The Black Lion hospital.