The Caribbean Children Foundation (TCCF) has signed an agreement with the International Children’s Heart Foundation (ICHF) to boost treatment for kids with heart ailments in Guyana, TCCF President Jay Brijpaul said.
Guyana-born Brijpaul told The Camera the main focus of this project is to provide the components over an extended period to develop a local team capable of providing care independently for most children with congenital heart disease.
Brijpaul said for 2016, TCCF has agreed to contribute CAD$1,500 for each patient who has such surgery in Guyana.
Dr. Rodrigo Soto, pediatric cardiac surgeon and CEO, Clinical Operations ICHF, said, “This is so exciting! TCCF and ICHF working together can accomplish the dream of building the much-needed pediatric cardiac services in Guyana and make Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) a referral centre for the Caribbean.”
Soto said the model ICHF uses is a two-week medical mission trip where a team of cardiac specialists is sent to Guyana to provide diagnostic services, operative interventions, and post-operative care.
They operate on at least two children daily, four days per week. The other days are spent teaching important issues like patient care using the child’s pathophysiology.
ICHF has already donated to the GPHC most of the equipment that is needed. Their aim is to develop a pediatric cardiac services program in Guyana and make GPHC a referral centre for the entire Caribbean.
In 2015, ICHF made three two-week medical mission trips to Guyana performing 42 surgical procedures and 13 catherization studies with no mortality.
Since 2000, TCCF has paid $1.3 million to assist more than 70 critically ill Caribbean children.
“We are a one hundred percent charity. Everyone is a volunteer, no one is paid. And every dollar goes directly towards the medical care of a critically ill Caribbean child,” Brijpaul said.
He noted some of the Angels, as the organization calls children, helped as babies are now healthy, robust, normal teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them.
In 2014, Brijpaul and his TCCF leadership team embarked on a new venture that witnessed 13 children receive surgical care at hospitals in the Dominican Republic and Honduras. “This effort was coordinated by one of our own, Dr. Narendra Singh, a Guyanese-Canadian doctor and his colleagues, who stepped outside of the box to make it possible and affordable,” Brijpaul noted.
TCCF is the recipient of the Spirit Award – the highest in its category offered by the Herbie Fund – presented by Gina Godfrey, co-founder and long-time president of the Herbie Fund, for outstanding performance and commitment towards helping critically ill children.
Among TCCF’s events this year are the July Boat Cruise on Lake Ontario, the Caribbean Flava Summa Lime in August and in November, the Anniversary Angel Gala.
For more information visit www.tccfangels.com or call 905- 840-5369.