By TONY EDIKE, Enugu
FORTY patients suffering different kinds of heart diseases have successfully undergone open heart surgeries at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH,   Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu state since the past one year after the hospital resumed the programme.

The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr. Christopher Amah disclosed this Frirday while conducting journalists round the ultra-modern cardiothoracic theatre where both foreign and local surgeons are currently conducting open heart operations on not less than 18 patients from different parts of the country.

The CMD disclosed that UNTH was in 1986 designated as centre of excellence for cardiothoracic surgery having performed the first open heart surgery in sub-Sahara Africa in 1974.

He noted that the open heart programme of the hospital was suspended for about 10 years on account of the hospital’s relocation to its permanent site at Ituku Ozalla, adding that the centre said to be of international standard, was   reactivated at the permanent site by March 2013 through the collaboration of foreign partners.

“Last year, precisely March, 2013, by the Grace of God and by the spirit of team work, we were able to reactivate the open heart surgery programme, which disappeared from here apparently some ten years before. After quite a lot of preparations we were able to take off.

Between March last year and now, this ongoing one is the fifth mission we are doing and we have operated on 40 persons all together. The last one was in December, we did 11; in this one now we have shortlisted about 18 persons both adult and children and there are many more patients pressing to be enlisted,” he said. Amah stated that the programme was reactivated in line with the transformation programme of the present administration in the health sector, noting that medical tourism has become a huge embarrassment to the country, hence the need to reverse the trend particularly on heart related ailments.

He stressed the need for adequate funding from government at all levels and public spirited organizations and individuals in order to sustain the programme.

The CMD noted that it costs about N750, 000 to N1 million to perform one open heart surgery on adults and N500, 000 for children, an amount he said was highly subsidized as the real cost should have been N1.8 million to N2 million.