Apollo Dhaka offers ‘subsidised price’ for children’s heart treatment

The Apollo Hospitals Dhaka is offering a package to make children’s heart diseases treatment available to underprivileged families at a “subsidised price”.

Apollo’s Paediatric Cardiology Department is doing interventions for common congenital heart defects such as ASD, VSD and PDA “competently without any surgery at a very low cost,” the hospital’s doctors said at a programme on Thursday.

Bangladesh has no nationwide data to say the prevalence of the disease, but birth heart defects are seen in about six out of 1,000 babies in the world.

Apollo organised a ‘patient forum for Paediatric Cardiology Department’ on Thursday to make people aware of the disease.

Clinical and Interventional Paediatric Cardiologist Dr Tahera Nazrin said heart diseases of children are “curable and preventable”.

“Unusual holes in the heart if detected and closed timely can lead the child to have a normal life. Such holes can be closed by using devices and the patient needs to be in hospital for only two days,” she said.

Coordinator and Senior Consultant for Cardiology Prof AQM Reza, Chief Operation Officer Dr Ratnadeep Chaskar and Coordinator and Senior Consultant for Paediatrics Prof Mohammed Istiaque Hossain also spoke.

Holes between the heart chambers, blockages in the pathways from the heart to the lungs or the body, or abnormal connections between the chambers and vessels of the heart are the form the defects take.

Babies appear with bluish colour of the skin, rapid breathing and fall short of breath if they suffer from those problems.

Doctors advise women of childbearing age to take vaccine against rubella virus to prevent babies suffering from birth heart defects.

Rubella is a mild disease in children. But it can have severe effects on an unborn child like heart defects, mental retardation, deafness, and blindness if the virus infects a pregnant woman.