MADEGE STORY- JKCI TOSPREAD HEART TREATMENT WINGS
The Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI) is intending to extend its expertise on cardiovascular treatment to other facilities throughout the country, in a bid to improve the cure of heart ailments.
Head of Department of JKCI Dr Peter Kisenge revealed this in Dar es Salaam, over the week when the Israeli Minister of Defence, Mr Avigdor Liberman, visited the institute. According to Dr Kisenge, JKCI experts will translate knowledge obtained from various training support and camps to health facilities including Benjamin Mkapa and Bugando hospitals.
"The aim is to reach out to as many heart patients as we can by availing similar services in other facilities in the country," said Dr Kisenge. He pointed out that the support accorded by Israel has enabled JKCI experts to carry out 65 per cent of all heart surgeries at the institute.
"Previously, the institute could only conduct surgeries by 30 per cent, but with the support that we have been receiving 65 per cent of all heart surgeries are being done by our experts and the remaining 35 per cent with assistance of medical teams from abroad," said Dr Kisenge.
Dr Kisenge observed that the assistance has enabled the country to save up to Tsh. 70 billion by carrying out heart surgeries on 2,440 patients who were suffering from heart diseases, instead of transferring them abroad in the past four years. "Our goal was to reach as many patients as we could by the year 2020 and we have done that, the current goal is to go above 80 per cent," he noted.
The mother of four year old patient Monica Cosmas Milinga who admited for three month with her daughter at JKCI said that her daughter had been sickly for two years, but the clinic in the family’s village 10 hours from Dar Es Salaam did not know how to help so they referred to JKCI. They arrived three weeks before SACH and Majani felt it best to wait for their Israeli partners but now she is happy that operation has successful done.
