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Maternal health
Reunion’s La Chaîne de l’Espoir team back in Madagascar
After long months of waiting, the Reunion team of La Chaîne de l'Espoir is back in Madagascar.
After more than 2 years of waiting due to border closures, the 48th heart surgery mission finally took place in Madagascar from May 4 to 12, 2022, with the Reunion-based La Chaîne de l’Espoir team. After screening children with heart defects in autumn 2021, La Chaîne de l’Espoir returned to Madagascar in spring 2022.
An overview of this new medical mission.
Over 300 children seen in consultation
This new cardiac surgery mission was carried out by a team from La Chaîne de l’Espoir in Reunion and two Madagascan cardiologists from the Centre hospitalier de Soavinandriana (CENHOSOA) in Tananarive.
The 48th cardiac surgery mission took place at this hospital in two stages:
- From April 9 to 29, as a prelude to the mission, CENHOSOA’s two cardiologists organized 8 consultation sessions, seeing 116 children,
- During the mission itself, the Reunion team from La Chaîne de l’Espoir and the two cardiologists from CENHOSOA saw 236 children in consultation.
These medical consultations revealed that 39 children needed open-heart surgery, 8 of which could be performed locally in Madagascar, and 31 requiring medical care abroad. Lastly, 8 of the children consulted required closed-heart surgery.
For the 2nd phase of this mission, during which 236 children were seen in consultation, the volunteer doctors from La Chaîne de l’Espoir and the two cardiologists from CENHOSOA were joined by seven doctors currently specializing in cardiology, a pediatrician from the Joseph Raseta Befelatanana University Hospital and a cardio-pediatrician from the Tambohobe Fianarantsoa University Hospital in the Haute Matsiatra region.
Children identified for the 1st open hearts in Madagascar
Carried out as part of a project to support pediatric cardiac surgery in Madagascar, this humanitarian mission, carried out jointly by Reunion doctors from La Chaîne de l’Espoir and local doctors, fulfilled two objectives:
- provide medical follow-up for sick children,
- pre-select children likely to be the 1st to benefit locally from open-heart surgery in CENHOSOA’s recently refurbished cardio-pediatric unit.
For the record, this refurbishment of CENHOSOA’s cardio-pediatric care unit is the cornerstone of the program to support the development of pediatric cardiac surgery in Madagascar. Financed by La Chaîne de l’Espoir, work began in early 2020, thanks in particular to the skills of Bouygues Bâtiment International, the company in charge of the project. The work will be completed shortly.
At the same time, from February 20 to May 20, 2022, a surgical team from CENHOSOA spent time training at the Cuomo Cardiopediatric Center in Dakar, Senegal, with a view to creating the 1st open heart in Madagascar’s medical history.
