The pioneer teaching hospital in Nigeria, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan has recorded an unprecedented feat in the area of all diseases of the heart and blood vessels otherwise known as cardiovascular.

Between October and now, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Professor Temitope Alonge, told THISDAY in a chat yesterday that about seven open heart surgeries had been performed by UCH; the latest being the first ever Coronary Artery Bye-Pass Grafting (CABG), carried out on Tuesday.

Patients suffering from such heart diseases, according to him, could now be diagnosed and treated in UCH, Ibadan instead of being flown abroad for treatment, which gulps about N4million.

With N1.5million, he said the treatment could be done here in Nigeria, just as the hospital’s management performed the official inauguration of the UCH Interventional Cardiology Programme (UCH ICP) yesterday at the Emeritus Professor Theophilus Oladipo Ogunlesi Multi-purpose Hall of the hospital.

Alonge, while speaking at the inauguration of the programme, told the audience that the last time similar intervention efforts on the treatment of the heart diseases in Nigeria was performed was in 1978.

The resuscitation of the cardiology programme, Alonge said, which started in 2011, was being done through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), which allowed UCH to collaborate successfully with Just Not Comparable International (JNCI), an international company, which supplied the equipment worth N400million; the Tri-state (technical manpower -personnel) headed by Professor Kamar Adeleke and Babcock University.

Coincidentally, Adeleke, an American-trained doctor is an Alaadorin Ibadan-born professional, who left the shore of the country at the age of 18.

Speaking further on the successful open heart surgery, Alonge said the issue of open heart surgery was not new in Nigeria, stating the ability to resuscitate the procedure started last year at UCH.

He explained further that the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital in Enugu was actually the first institution to have embarked on open heart surgery but the challenges had always been that of equipment, manpower and the ability to sustain it.

“But the UCH acquired the cardiac capitalisation machine by Toshiba in 2011 and it was installed and put to use in 2013.  That allows us to evaluate the state of the arteries supplied by the heart muscles and if for any reasons there is any blockage at the same sitting, the blood vessels can be opened up with the ballon, but if the damage is extensive such that we cannot do the so called ballon and geo-plasty, then we resolve to open heart surgery,” he said.

“This technically means that the chest will be split into two, the heart is exposed and then, the blood that is entering and leaving the heart is diverted into a machine called the heart-lung machine and we stop the heart. So, technically the person is dead and the blood is going through the machine and going back into the patient and then repair work are carried out on the heart and after that we wake the heart up again,”  Alonge said.

On Tuesday, THISDAY recalled that members of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) and Nigerian Union of Allied  Health Professionals celebrated the first Coronary Artery bye-pass Gland (CABG) open heart surgery carried out by the Hospital.

It was done without any blood transfusion (bloodless surgery) with the aid of cardiac capitalisation machine by Toshiba which was acquired by the hospital in 2011, installed and put into use in 2013.

The feat was the first ever to be carried in West Africa, it was learnt.

The National President, Nigerian Union of Allied  Health Professionals, Dr.  Felix Olukayode Faniran, described the feat as a great breakthrough.

He spoke at a symposium entitled “Nigerian Health Sector: Politics, Policy and Practice.” organised by members of the union held at the School of Nursing Auditorium, UCH Ibadan.

According Faniran, “The essence of the symposium is to examine health care practices in the country, one of the them is what you heard the Alonge said that they just had a breakthrough on CABG carried out at UCH.”

By Ademola Babalola in Ibadan