About 60 children are set to benefit from free heart surgeries to be conducted at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital in Mombasa.
The initiative came after the county government of Mombasa partnered with the Sharjah Charity International organsation to bring together 14 specialist doctors to conduct the procedures.
The specialists come from the United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Netherlands.
The week-long Free Heart Surgery Camp was officially opened by Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir on Monday.
He said the surgeries which are both open heart surgeries and minimal invasion heart surgeries will save parents from expensive cost associated with the surgeries.
“This partnership will see needy cases benefit from the surgeries at no cost. This is a relief to the beneficiaries as the surgeries are quite expensive with one costing about Sh1.5 million in India,” Nassir said.
He added that the beneficiaries are from all over the country with some coming all the way from Baringo and Voi.
He said the Cath Lab launched last year by his predecessor Hassan Joho has been serving, not only Mombasa, but the entire Coast region. The counties include Kilifi, Kwale, Lamu, Mombasa, Tana River and Taita Taveta counties.
With the Cath Lab, Coast General Hospital is among the only two public hospitals in the country with the ability to carry out the heart procedures.
Speaking during the launch, Sharjah CEO Abdulhalim Saleh said the process of identifying the 60 beneficiaries began four months ago through medical outreaches conducted in the six counties of the region.
It is from the outreach conducted, he said, they discovered that there was rampant rises in the number of cardiovascular related cases that remained unnoticed putting the lives of many especially children at risk.
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