US-based Arab doctors plan charity hospital to treat children with heart diseases

AMMAN — Jordanian and Arab doctors based in the US have announced they are planning to establish a charity hospital specialising in heart diseases and surgeries for the children in the Kingdom, which will be the first of its kind in the Arab region, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Wednesday.

Hasan Abdallah, head of the Children's Heart Institute in Virginia and Maryland, said that the project was welcomed by government and healthcare stakeholders in the Kingdom after being acquainted with the details of the hospital.

Abdallah, who is in charge of the charity hospital, said that the participating doctors came up with the idea after receiving many cases of Arab and Jordanian children suffering from heart diseases, who arrive in the US for treatment in the late phases of the disease.

He noted that the international ratio for heart diseases and defects among children stands at 1-to-1,000, yet the percentage is higher in Jordan, attributing the reasons to social habits (endogamy) and genetic and environmental factors, in addition to taking some medicines and smoking during pregnancy.

Abdallah added that more than 50 per cent of heart diseases in the Kingdom are discovered in late stages, and some children die after two weeks of birth due to the lack of a correct diagnosis during pregnancy.

Fatality ratio among embryos that fail to develop the left part of the heart amounts to over than 90 per cent, the doctor said. 

He explained that the envisioned hospital would establish new ways for heart disease diagnosis and treatment for embryos, where treatment is implemented through cardiac catheterisation before birth to avoid early deaths.