Nigerians in Diaspora perform 7th open heart mission in Nigeria

As part of the voluntary service of Nigerians in the Diaspora in the health sector, a total of 49 surgeries have been performed in the last five years during the 7th open heart missions for children in the National Hospital, Abuja.
The Chief Medical Director of National Hospital, Abuja, Dr. Jafaru Momoh, gave this cheering news while receiving Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, who was on an on the spot assessment of the medical team in Abuja.
Momoh, represented by Dr. Aisha Umar, Director of Clinical Services, explained that this is the second mission in 2019 with the first one carried out in May in which eight surgeries were done successfully.
“In this second phase of the mission, they planned to do 10 to 12 surgeries with a target of three per day ending on Saturday, November 30,” She said.
Umar said due to the services rendered by the volunteers, the Hospital has subsidised the rate of the surgeries from N500,000 to N250,000, which she revealed was not enough to cover the bills for the surgery.  
She said in the past five years, the medical team was able to train the local nurses, which had reduced the cost for them because they don’t have to travel with nurses again.
The Medical Director said the team is not being paid for the services accommodated, adding that all the hospital does was to thank them and give necessary logistics support.
Umar therefore appealed to other medical personnel in the diaspora to make out time and conduct outreaches in any way possible.
Elated by the kind gesture of the Medical mission, Dabiri-Erewa said the commission has been able to create the Diaspora Healthcare Initiative and thanked Dr. Patrick Uwubanmwen, Chief Executive, Spem Quia Filii Foundation, who led the team of volunteers from the United Kingdom.
The NIDCOM boss assured the team of the Federal Government’s support, especially in the structure of the medical missions in Nigeria from the Diaspora, and thanked the doctors for their selflessness, philanthropy, time and money towards the project.
Earlier, Uwubanmwen said his Foundation and that of Healing Little Heart Foundation have successfully carried out 1,900 surgeries in 28 medical missions across the world.
He said he was inspired to start the foundation because he lost a brother to a heart disease, adding that heart diseases killed more than malaria globally.
Uwubanmwen listed other members of the team as Dr. Zeena Makhija, Consultant Cardiothoracic and Congenital Heart Disease; Dr. Raghu Ramaah, Consultant Intensive Care Unit; Dr. N Nadia, Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist; and Dr. S. Singuha, Consultant Paediatric Cardiac Anaesthetist.
He said the Healing Little Heart Foundation will be the first centre for children to receive open heart surgery and hoping other geopolitical zones will be able to replicate it, urging the government for more capacity to train the medical staff.
He said they got four collaborations from different charities, but requested for more funding from the government that will in turn assist the team and increase the success of more surgeries.