UAE team carries out open-heart surgery on boy

Dubai: A UAE medical team at Dubai Hospital on Monday carried out a successful open-heart surgery on a boy suffering from complicated heart birth deformity.

The nine-year old Yemeni boy was diagnosed with a complicated birth defect by Dr. Shahrayan Abdullah, a paediatric cardiac consultant.

Dr. Shahrayan said that the birth defect was caused by a single ventricle, which led to a deficiency in the amount of oxygen feeding the body, separating the pulmonary artery's atrophy.

During the five-hour surgery, the team closed the opening and fixed the birth defect by separating the blood circulation from the oxidized blood circulation resulting from the child having one ventricle.

The child was put on an artificial respiratory system and was given some medication to help his heart endure the procedure. The operations are being conducted in cooperation with an Italian medical team.

The visiting Italian team, along with their UAE counterpart, will continue to conduct such operations over the next 10 days as part of a humanitarian initiative by the Dubai Health Authority in cooperation with the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment to provide free treatment for children who suffer from heart deformities.

The initiative was launched in 2007, and 230 children from various Arab countries were treated.