3,115 Heart Surgeries for Children Conducted in Past 10 Years

The Children's Hospital No.1 in Ho Chi Minh City July 7 held a meeting to review the program of heart surgery for children in the past 10 years. Since 2004 to date, the hospital has performed heart surgeries for 3,115 children including 645 serious inborn heart diseases and for 125 neonates contributing to reduce the fatality rate from 7.7% in 2004 to 1.1% in 2014. The hospital has conducted from simple cases of heart diseases including Atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect to complicated congenital heart diseases like tetralogy of Fallot, partial atrioventricular canal defects, transposition of great vessals  which patients had to travel abroad for treatment. The hospital has over 1,400 beds and receives over 1.5 million patients for examination and admits 95,000 inpatients every year.  It can examine 7,000 children per day. It is scheduled by 2016, the hospital will have additional 1,000 beds for children. The heart surgeries for children started in 2014 with the fund from the city’s state budget and the support of benefactors; the Department of Health, the Heart Institute, Children's HeartLink. (Saigon Giai Phong – Saigon Liberation July 8)