Campaign to provide life-saving surgery

A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl with a hole in her heart has a new lease of life since receiving life-saving heart surgery after waiting for three years.

Chenille Nimrod, who had been on the heart surgery waiting list for more than three years, underwent life-changing surgery to repair the hole in her heart early in September this year.

“I am so happy and grateful that my child has finally received the surgery we have been waiting for since 2018. She is doing well and looks healthier. I would like to thank everyone who made this surgery possible, and everyone who made it a success,” said Natasha Nimrod, Chenille’s mother.

Nimrod said yesterday that her daughter was diagnosed with congenital heart disease in 2018 after the then three-year-old experienced severe constipation and complained that her heart was beating too fast.

“That’s when they discovered that there was a hole in her heart,” the mother, from Komani, previously Queenstown, Eastern Cape, said.

The successful operation was made possible through a partnership between Pelo Foundation and the Busamed Hospital Group. The foundation is a non-profit organisation that raises awareness and funds for children with congenital heart disease to receive treatment.

“I am very pleased that we have managed to successfully conduct the surgery, since it was the first child to be operated on under this project. Our aim is to assist as many children as we can – should we immediately get the financial injection needed.

“Normally, children can be on the waiting list for about two years. I hope that there will be many entities that will come up and collaborate so that we may assist in saving more lives,” said Dr Michael Janson from Busamed

Hospital in Paardevlei, Western Cape, who was part of the team that performed the surgery.

As the Pelo Foundation’s first beneficiary, Chenille was for many years one of 200 children placed on the heart treatment waiting list by the Eastern Cape Department of Health.

The operation was performed just a few weeks after the Pelo Foundation launched an awareness campaign to help save children in South Africa who are in serious need of heart surgery and related treatment.

Pelo Foundation spokesperson Masoka Dube said: “Currently, there are five other children from the Eastern Cape who are in dire need of medical intervention.

“These children include a sevenyear-old boy from Mdantsane who was born with severe left pulmonary artery stenosis, and a six-year-old from Bloemendal who has been diagnosed with perimembranous ventricular septal defect and has been on the waiting list for seven years.

“Also on the list is an 11-monthold baby boy from KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage, who was born with Down Syndrome; a four-month-old from Sidwell, whose complications include failure to thrive, recurrent respiratory tract infections due to pulmonary congestion, and a 20-month-old child who desperately needs heart treatment.”

Dube added that if these children, all born with severe heart conditions, did not receive immediate medical intervention, they could suffer further health complications or may even die.

“Due to the burden of the disease in South Africa and the magnitude of the problem, Pelo Foundation is raising awareness concerning the plight of children in need of congenital heart disease treatment and intervention,” Dube said.