More than 1,000 poor children await heart surgery in Managua, Nicaragua. More are diagnosed each day. This project will obtain sodium nitroprusside, essential to controlling blood pressure following heart repairs. Post-operative hypertension may be a life-threatening development for a young child. An urgent call from the Health Ministry informed us that they have run out of this medicine at our project hospital, La Mascota Children's Hospital. We need to help by sending 50 vials.
More than 1,000 children are on a waiting list for open-heart surgery and other heart procedures at La Mascota Children's Hospital in Managua, a public hospital serving poor children. Without surgery, these children will face an early death. With surgery, they can be returned to health. Surgeons of Hope has established our program at La Mascota and trained local surgeons to perform this surgery. They have urgently called for us to send this nitroprusside medicine.
By replenishing the supply of this medicine, the surgeons will be able to resume surgery on these poor children. The medicine is commonly used after open and closed heart surgeries, particularly in young patients needing aortic repairs, where post-operative high blood pressure can be a serious risk to the child.
We will continue the momentum we have established at La Mascota Children's Hospital where we are also beginning construction on a new Pediatric Heart Center of Nicaragua which will serve as a training hospital for the region. Surgeons of Hope is working to close the gap between medical care that is routinely available in the developed world, but lacking in the emerging countries. An estimated 50 children will survive a blood pressure emergency with the help of this medicine.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).