Cardio surgery

The Cardio-Surgery Project is part of the work of the Association of Charitable Funds and is also a joint project of the Almaty Dara, Ayala and Dom Miloserdiya Charity Foundations.

Currently, one of Kazakhstan's most acute problems is child mortality from congenital heart disease (CHD). Each year about 3,000 children are born with serious defects, of which only between 10 and 15% live to reach their first birthday. The problem is that Kazakhstan has never had any clinics able to operate on children with CHD who weigh less than 12 kg, which is the average weight of a one-year old child. Many of them never make that weight. Kazakhstan's charity organizations have been taking children abroad for their operations. The government even has a program whereby patients whose illnesses cannot be treated in Kazakhstan are treated abroad. The problem is not going away; the number of children needing operations is huge, and a solution needs to be found locally, so that they can be operated on in Kazakhstan.

The Association of Charity Foundations (ACF) believes that the only solution to the problem is to train local doctors and provide them and their clinics with the equipment they need.

Preliminary Almaty ACF meetings defined several parallel areas where children's cardio-surgery can be developed in Kazakhstan.

1. Research

Research into the planned construction and provision of equipment to national cardio-surgical centers, commission dates, main areas of activity;

Familiarization with leading children's cardio-surgical centers to help send children for treatment, and also doctors on specific specialization courses.

2. Providing equipment to local clinics

Provide the operating and intensive care departments of the Almaty Syzganov medical institute with equipment that will allow it to operate on a significantly higher number of people in Kazakhstan and avoid having to raise a lot of cash for "overseas" treatment.

Purchase, install and guarantee two additional intensive care places for children's cardio-surgery.

3. Training

Invite teams of highly-qualified cardio-surgeons and other specialists from Russia and Europe - cardiologists, diagnosticians, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, resuscitators, to perform a continuous operations on Kazakhstan children who need them - "on rotation", so to speak. In doing so, Kazakhstan specialists will receive the skills they need on the job, working closely with more experienced colleagues - improve their vocational level.

Training potential surgeons, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, resuscitators, operating nurses, and all relevant specialists to ensure a valuable children's cardio-surgical practice in Kazakhstan based on leading world centers.

Together with the Dom Miloserdiya and Ayala foundations, we have carried out a series of measures to resolve the problem of CHD:

• Supported three visits from foreign specialists (helped the Italian foundation Aiutare i Bambini organize the visit of two delegations of Italian cardio-surgeons from a cardio-centre in Bergamo)
• Purchased equipment (surgical instruments to be used on babies and equipment to maintain the temperature of patients during operations and therapy).
• Our foundations also held successful talks with the company Mary Kay on paying for two open Resuscitaire RW 82 units, which means doctors can effectively heat and provide resuscitation in intensive therapy while working with children's hearts and new born babies weighing less than 5 kg.
• Through its contact with the Bergamo cardio-center, and together with its partners and sponsors such as the companies Yersai and First President's Foundation and Chevron, the Dara Foundation sent a cardio-surgical team of Kazakhstan doctors (two cardio-surgeons, two anesthetists and one perfusionist from the Syzganov institute) on placement.
• With the support of the jewelry house Damiani, the Dara Foundation has been able to purchase three infusers.

The results of our work have seen unprecedented operations on four small children within the walls of our Kazakhstan hospitals.