First time in Moldova. Minors to undergo heart laparoscopy surgery
23 children in our country who suffer from congenital heart malformations may lead a common life from now on thanks to a simple laparoscopy operation, minimally-invasive, which consists of "plugging" these heart defects with an "umbrella device". Heart surgery without scalpel is a first in Moldova in minors cases.
During the intervention the doctor inserts a device to the patient's heart.
"The essence of the procedure consists in that through an artery or a vein up to the heart where, minimally invasively, with certain maneuvers these defects can be removed, liquidated" , said doctor in medicine, cardiologist, Ion Popovici.
Dumitraş is the third child of the Stratulat family and was diagnosed with congenital heart disease just a month after his birth. Today, the little one was given a new chance to live perfectly healthy and his mother can barely master her emotions.
"Now he is in the operating room and I'm worried for him, but I think everything will be okay, all right, we hope God will help us" , said mother of Dumitraş, Anastasia Stratulat.
The heart surgery for the little ones is done under anesthesia, but teenagers remain conscious. Andrew is 18-year-old and lives a new experience, hearing the beating of a healthy heart.
"From the beginning it was hard to breathe, and towards the end there was such a relief, an indescribable feeling. The heartbeats are dynamic and balanced, not as usual, beating and at one point stopped and then strated began again" , said Andrei Ţebuleschii.
Although the intervention lasted more than 24 hours, the boy can already go home, as well as other minors operated on Wednesday. Heart intervention was carried out by a Swedish cardiologists.
"If we compare the surgical opening, stenotomia and so on, where patients must remain in hospital at least a week, normally that endovascular treatment, ie through the skin is phenomenal, formidable" , said cardiologist, Peter Liuba.
The cost of such an intervention is 20,000 euros on average, patients in our country will pay between 2,500 and 4,500 euros. Children from socially vulnerable families were operated for free.
In the period October 5th to 6th, 11 children were operated laparoscopically, while other 12 will be operated in February 2017.
According to statistics, one in a hundred children in our country are born with congenital heart disease.