Doha: Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) sent a medical team to Mauritania to perform cardiac catheterisations on children with heart diseases who cannot find local treatment and whose families cannot afford their treatment abroad.
The mission is accompanied by a media team from Al Rayyan Satellite Channel for first-hand documentation and coverage.
Over one week, it will prepare, perform and follow up on operations, which will take place at National Center of Cardiology, Nouakchott, with an estimated budget of about QR700,000.
On average, the project will serve 36 children between two months and 16 years, including 17 boys and 19 girls.
The mission comprises Dr Mohamed Tawfik Noaman, Paediatric Cardiology Consultant, Dr Mahmoud Al Soufi, Paediatric Cardiology Consultant, and Abdullah Ashkenani, Senior Cardiovascular Technician, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
They will be assisted by a Mauritanian anaesthetist, physicians, assistants and nurses.
Ahmed Al Khulaifi, Head, QRC Public Relations, and Head of the mission, said, “The QRC annual cardiac catheterization project began in 2004 and is financed primarily from the revenue of the Ramadan fundraiser. It targets families that cannot afford treatment or travelling abroad for it. Some countries lack domestic treatment capabilities. We are contemplating other countries, such as Djibouti, Yemen, and Niger.
“The operations are aimed at treating heart congenital disorders and diseases among poor children, such as holes in the heart, defective heart valves. They are cardiac catheterisations, not surgical operations like open heart surgeries,” he added.
Al Khulaifi said the mission was originally scheduled for last June, but due to coordination inconveniences, it was delayed to this week. “In 2011, this team performed cardiac operations at the same centre, and it is my honour to be with them as the head of mission,” he said.
The Peninsula
