Artificial hearts in UAE provide answer in acute cases

Dubai: A top heart surgeon said Dubai will soon use artificial hearts for patients who suffer very acute attacks which will give them a chance to recover.

"The small devices will either be inside the body or external," said Dr Obaid Al Jasem, head of cardio-thoracic surgery at Dubai Hospital.

He said the devices will keep the patient alive and allow time for the heart muscle to recover, or until a heart donor is found in very extreme cases.

The surgeon said heart transplants can easily be done in Dubai but there had to be greater public "acceptance" on heart donations after death. "Heart transplants are easy cut and paste jobs, compared to other heart surgeries," he said, noting that it does not present a religious issue here.

The other plan is to conduct more minimal invasive procedures that will reduce costs, which help the patient suffer less infection so that "he gets up from the bed faster".

Dr Al Jasem said the growing number of heart patients in Dubai is "alarming".

"Two factors are at play here," he said. "External factors as pollution, stress and smoking. These you can control," he said. The things which one cannot control are genetic factors, but diabetes and obesity are still under control, he added.

The surgeon said women in the region have smaller blood vessels and they often approach hospitals very late for treatment.

"That is the reason for more deaths among women," he said, but also blamed doctors for not recognising symptoms at an earlier stage.

Dr Al Jasem headed an Emirati team along with visiting Italian surgeons to operate on children with heart defects.

"The number of children with such defects is growing," he said.

The surgeries which cost Dh200,000 in Europe and the US are done here on a subsidised cost, he said. Poor families are given free treatment and the costs are covered by the Red Crescent and the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment.

He said that 2,030 children have received a new lease of life after the programme was initiated.

"We have children coming from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine," he said.

Of the 15,000 new babies born every year in Dubai, one per cent will be born with heart defects, he said. "The 150 cases every year is a big number."