Saloni Heart Center of Excellence for Children born with Congenital Heart Disease
Pediatric cardiac care, including that of the newborn, has emerged as a super specialty that is resource-intensive and requires multi-disciplinary care. The expanding knowledge base in the wide spectrum of congenital heart diseases, rheumatic heart diseases, cardiac arrhythmias, cardiomyopathies, infections and systemic disorders involving the cardiovascular system in children has become significant enough to warrant focused capacity building and training.
With an early diagnosis and treatment, over 75% of infants born with critical heart disease can survive beyond the first year of life and many can lead near normal lives thereafter. However, many children born in low- and middle-income countries and afflicted with congenital heart disease do not get the requisite care leading to high morbidity and mortality. Lack of availability of dedicated pediatric cardiac care services with trained cardiologists, surgeons, anesthetists and intensivists is an important area of unmet clinical need in this context.
Children and adolescents between the age 0-18 years constitute around 40% of the population of India as well as Uttar Pradesh. They need the best of medical care for their growth and development. Approximately 2,40,000 children are born with various types of congenital heart disease in India every year and about 10% (~24,000) need intervention in high quality Pediatric Cardiac facility to survive beyond one year of age. In addition, 80% of these children constant access to good quality heart care to live a normal or near-normal life.
As of now, there are only 10 large centers dedicated for management of these children and these perform less than 15,000 surgical procedures every year. Most of these are in the Private sector and tend to choose simpler cases, neglecting complex cases, who are in most need of these facilities (socioeconomic reasons). Additionally, some Cardiovascular and Thoracic Programs (Both Public and Private) perform surgical procedures for these children but mostly without having gone through adequate training and having adequate infrastructure for proper care of these children and neonates.In the state of Uttar Pradesh, these is no dedicated center for these children and SGPGI is the only center caring for these children with limited capacity and capabilities. Thus, there is a need for development of a dedicated center for adequate care of children born with congenital heart disease where these sick children and neonates not only get acomprehensive care but also life-long follow-up so as toallow these children to lead a normal life (which has become almost a norm in Developed nations like USA).
Towards this end, The Govt. of UP signed an MOU with Saloni Heart Foundation (SHF), California, USA with the aim to surgically treat about 5000 children born with congenital heart disease, including complex cases in neonates and infants and to manage at least 10,000 children medically and by other means every year to fulfil this unmet need for the state as well as the country.
As SGPGIMS is a teaching and training institution with a proven record of not only provide world class medical care to needy patients at an affordable cost but also producing trained manpower in all spheres of patient care (medical, nursing and paramedical professionals) over last more than 30 years, The Govt of UP mandated SGPGIMS to spearhead this program to fulfil not only unmet needs in patient care but also to produce dedicated and well trained manpower with necessary skillset for complex cardiothoracic surgeries and their all-around care for not only the state and the country but also for the rest of the world who will then cross pollinate a world class expertise in this field in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Rest of the Country
As this center will also need support from other pediatric departments at various stages of management of these children with complex congenital heart disease, SGPGI plans to build this center adjacent to the upcoming Pediatric Center so that these children get a holistic approach to their management till their care can be transferred in an orderly fashion to the adult counterparts of the institute.
As per the MOU, later ratified in the 97th Governing Body of the Institute, the Saloni Heart Foundation will provide for construction of building of the highest standard possible, equipped with most modern equipment for management of these patients in the five departments created for this center. These departments are Pediatric CTVS, Pediatric Cardiology, Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesia, Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care and Pediatric Cardiac Radiology. The foundation will also provide training and Handholding for these department with the help of their Parent departments already existing in the institute. The Govt. of UP will provide for requisite manpower of all levels (medical, nursing, paramedical and other support staff).
