Heart

Congenital heart disease in Kenya is a serious problem, minimal health care in rural areas and a lack of specialist medical help mean that it often goes undiagnosed.

In 2001 MEAK approached Professor David Anderson, one of the UK’s foremost paediatric cardiac surgeons who agreed to work on an on-going basis with teams from The Evalina Children’s Hospital at Guys and St Thomas’, all working without payment, on missions to Kenya. The first mission took place in January 2002 – then in 2003 MEAK provided a heart-lung machine to The Aga Khan hospital in Mombasa – and that same year MEAK carried out the first ever open-heart surgery in Kenya outside the capital.

In 2009 MEAK donated further heart and lung pumps together with blood heater/cooler units to Kenyatta National hospital in Nairobi and The Mombasa hospital, Mombasa.

By the end of 2011 MEAK will have carried out sixteen heart missions – and operated on 326 children.  It has been estimated that around 35% of all paediatric heart surgery carried out in Kenya is done by MEAK.