Five children with congenital heart disease from northwest China's Qinghai province have been discharged and embarked on a home-going trip on Wednesday.
10-year-old Manraj, who comes from Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province, suffers from congenital heart disease. After a series of preoperative examinations, on March 29th, the doctors in Nanjing performed a minimally invasive surgery on him.
"He had a 13-millimeter atrial septal defect, and we performed a minimally invasive occlusion for him. He recovered quickly after surgery, and for such a child, since there is a chance, it is necessary to treat his heart disease early to ensure the improvement of his future quality of life, so that he can achieve a normal quality of life in the future," said Yu Wenda, Deputy Chief Physician of the Cardiovascular Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University.
On Wednesday morning, Manraj was very excited about going home, and he looked nothing different from a healthy child.
The doctor said that he only needs to take medication for a period of time and undergo regular follow-up at the local hospital. Doctors in Nanjing will also follow him up remotely.
"I am in a particularly good mood now," said Manraj's Father.
"Fifty-two children came from Qinghai to Nanjing for surgery, half of whom underwent minimally invasive intervention surgery, and they recovered relatively quickly. Today, five children were discharged from hospital. We sent them to Nanjing railway station where they boarded the train to Xining," said Geng Zhi, Deputy Chief Physician of the Cardiovascular Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University.
In 2014, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University started to provide assistance to children with congenital heart disease from disadvantaged families across the country, including those in the western region. So far, over 100 thousand people have been screened.
"Most of these congenital heart disease patients come from Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Shaanxi. By conducting free screening and rescue activities, we have traveled over a million kilometers to make screens in over a dozen provinces, and so far assisted over 1000 children with congenital heart disease," said Geng Zhi, Deputy Chief Physician of the Cardiovascular Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University.
