Heartwarming and hopeful

Last week, the Bustamante Hospital for Children’s cardiac unit was teeming with healthcare professionals, bustling about to urgently get children into operating theatres for corrective heart surgery.

Many children battle with severe heart conditions, some living to see another day while still battling to heal, others eventually succumbing to their heart defects.

These children struggle with constant exhaustion, shortness of breath and limitations on their daily lives, but now, with the efforts of the annual Chain of Hope medical mission, an international medical charity dedicated to developing Jamaica’s cardiac care, many of these children are able to experience a new day and a new life without the shackles of heart failure floating like a dark cloud over their heads.

For Bradon Williams, a 13-year-old boy and the first patient to be treated on this medical mission, the surgery and his ongoing recovery was a breeze. Only two days after surgery, Bradon was last week already seeing a change in his life, starting with the bright smile he now wears all the time as he no longer has to deal with easily becoming tired and experiencing shortness of breath.

Bradon is one of many children who were born with a ventricular septal defect (VSD), a hole in the heart that contributed to his constant tiredness and breathing difficulties. He serves as an example of the many lives Chain of Hope has touched and will continue to touch while partnered with foundations such as Digicel Gift of Life International, Shaggy and Friends and the National Health Fund to build Jamaica’s cardiac care unit.

Bradon now has his mind set on playing football and basketball with his friends as soon as he heals and leaves the hospital. But he also has one more request.

“Steak!” he says is what he wants to be his first meal the moment he gets discharged.

His grandmother, 59-year-old Carol Henry, said she couldn’t control her emotions as she jumped and cried in utter joy at the sight of Bradon one day after his surgery. On the day after his surgery, Henry said Bradon appeared exhausted as if his condition had worsened, but his well-being subsequently took a total turn for the better.

“I can’t find the words to put it together. I screamed and gave God thanks because, by Tuesday he started to walk.”

Bradon was scheduled to undergo surgery in 2019, however, as an only child at the time, his mother was worried about losing her son and was hesitant to go through with the procedure.

His grandmother, however, decided to step up.

“Last year he came for holiday and was playing football with his cousin. He was holding his chest and I said ‘what’s wrong’. He said his chest was hurting him.”

Having thought Bradon had already undergone the surgery, Henry was shocked to find out that he had not and that made her take matters into her own hands.

FEARFUL

Henry said Bradon was fearful of going through surgery but, desperate to get him the help he needed, she convinced him to come with her to the clinic, thinking he was going there for a less daunting reason.

“When he heard he was being admitted, he didn’t want to come. I had to trick him and tell him that doctor just wanted to do a review to see what is what. I told him to come to me on the Friday evening and we went on the Saturday morning.”

Bradon found out at the doctor’s office that he was there for the surgery and was admitted on the Monday morning.

Samonique Elliot, another patient, is nine years old and has also suffered for most of her life from a VSD with left heart volume overload.

“She would get tired so easily,” said Samara Whyte, Samonique’s mother. She said that Samonique was first diagnosed at four months old when she noticed how easily her daughter would lose her breath but she said she assumed it was asthma. Thankfully, on taking Samonique to the doctor, Whyte was given the news that she had actually been suffering from heart complications.

Whyte recalls many sleepless nights, worrying about her daughter’s state which she believed was getting worse. As Whyte hails from Westmoreland, whenever Samonique was scheduled for surgery they were unable to go through with it as the early and lengthy travelling often got the best of her in the end.

“With her sickness, she gets a cold easily especially if we bathe her late at night. We came here last month but she coughed one time and they said ‘Mommy, I’m not going to chance it’ so when they called me (to come for surgery), I just didn’t send her out because I knew the environment was going to make her sick. I just kept her home for the week and finally we’re here.”

While she had not given it much thought, Whyte told The Gleaner that one of the first things she wanted to see Samonique do as soon as she was healed was to run.

“She loves to run. On sports day she wanted to run and I chanced it with her one year but it was short distance. But now I can let her try the running because she really wants to run.”

Meanwhile, her father, Kemroy Elliot, expressed a profound amount of gratitude to the medical team.

“Me just want fi give a big ‘thank you’ to the team. A big ‘thank you’ and ‘job well done’,” he said in praise.

The surgery, he said, meant a lot for the family. Like her father, who owns a music entertainment company, Samonique shares a love for music and wishes to carry on the legacy of her father’s business.

Samonique’s parents are still adjusting to the reality that their daughter no longer has to suffer as she did before and now has a chance at choosing her future.

Whyte shared a few final words to the doctors and nurses.

“Keep doing the good work. They’re helping so many kids who have the same or higher risk of that same condition also. So a big thanks. And continue doing what you’re doing. Don’t give up.”

Bradon can barely wait to kick a football again and, while his grandmother also anticipates spending time with him again, she also has something to say to the medical team.

“If I had the money, I would pour my all into other children. When I came to the clinic and saw small babies and children with the same problem, tears came to my eyes. I want to say ‘thank you’ to them and keep up the good work.”

CHILDREN SUFFERING FROM HEART ILLNESSES

She said she was unaware of the amount of the children that were suffering from heart illnesses until she went to the hospital but she was the most shocked when she saw even premature babies coming in.

Lastly, Bradon’s grandmother looks forward to eating his infamous stew chicken, which he enjoys cooking for her.

Since the establishment of Jamaica’s first cardiac unit at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, the foundation has since doubled the amount of intensive care beds in the country from five to 10 over two decades. A state-of-the-art catheter lab was also introduced, making it possible for many children to receive life-saving treatment without having to do open-heart surgery.

Emma Scanlan, chief executive officer for Chain of Hope, outlined some of the challenges the foundation faced while organising the mission.

“As with anywhere in the world, there are shortages of nurses in Jamaica so we’re working with the Ministry of Health and the nursing administration and UTech (University of Technology) to try to develop a nursing training programme to help attract nurses to the cardiac programme, to help qualified, trained nurses to be able to do the surgery.”

Scanlan said the missionaries also want to develop more programmes in order to really retain and attract people to the cardiac unit.

Maura O’Callaghan, a Chain of Hope Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse, stated that some of the volunteer nurses led a training session for ward nurses at the hospital, going through patient assessment, specifically focusing on blood gases.

“We did arterial blood gas analysis, so we just went through different blood gases that you can get post-op. They made the diagnosis themselves and came up with the solution to the problems, so they did really good. It’s putting theory into practice. So they looked at blood gases from the children that came back post cardiac surgery and said what they would do and what they were. They were very, very good.”

O’Callaghan ended by commending the skills of the local nurses and doctors but said more nurses are needed to hone the hospital’s full potential.

Meanwhile, Nola Phillpots-Brown, general manager for Chain of Hope Jamaica, added that the facility often gets expensive equipment from various foundations but another problem lies in maintaining them.

“We use them for a while but we don’t have onsite support sometimes because the support for BioMed engineering is shared across the island so, because of those limited resources, we would like to have that resource here. We want a BioMed engineer who can go in and repair the machines so that we can keep the activity going.”

The charity plans to partner with the Ministry of Heath and Wellness to develop this and also get a dedicated perfusionist on the team as well.

These surgeries assist in more than just saving lives of children across the country, and the world by extension. Dr Keit Tran, a distinguished cardiac surgeon from Sweden, who joined the team for the first time this year, was adamant that there was a broader purpose to these missions.

“In highly advanced countries, children with these conditions get treated as infants. Here, they sometimes wait years. But what’s incredible is how resilient they are,” he said. “The skill level in Jamaica is there, it’s just a matter of resources. With about 180 surgeries a year, we can sustain a long-term programme and train the next generation of surgeons.”

And, while the mission continues to be successful with the cardiac unit already completing eight surgeries in the span of three days, which Tran says is impressive in comparison to other nations, challenges remain. Around 400 children suffer from congenital heart defects in Jamaica annually and almost half of them need surgeries urgently.

The local team is led by local paediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Sherard Little and his team, led by Dr Cleopatra Patterson, who have grown and developed as they continue to build their capacity to treat Jamaican children with complex congenital heart diseases in the dedicated paediatric cardiac unit in Kingston.

Chain of Hope and its partners hope that this mission will help to resolve these issues not only through surgeries but also by training the local team to be equipped in handling the immense number of cases, even after the charity has left the island.

Tran emphasised that fixing these challenges plays a critical role in creating long-term solutions and a sustainable programme.

While Chain of Hope continues to remain steadfast in its collaboration with Jamaica, its wish is to expand the programme to other countries in the region. Jamaica would remain as a regional hub for other children in the Caribbean who need immediate heart treatment but don’t have access to specialised care in their homelands.

“We’re supporting training programmes for nurses and doctors, and we want to see a sustainable system in place. One day, we hope there will be no need for foreign volunteers,” Scanlan said.

For now, the volunteers will continue to work at the cardiac unit at the Bustamante Hospital while encouraging local surgeons to hone their skills and continue to provide post-op treatment to the patients.

Bradon and Samonique represent a small portion of children in Jamaica who often seek assistance with heart discrepancies. With so many children still waiting for life-saving surgery, continued funding is critical to support the missions’ visiting team to help the local cardiac team do more cardiac operations in 2025 and beyond.

mickalia.kington@gleanerjm.com