Two year old Dalilah Peter is recovering well after undergoing Operation Open Heart surgery last week in Port Moresby.
Little Dalilah flew into Port Moresby on January 21 from Mt Hagen where she lives with her mother Agnes.
She is the last born in a family of five and comes from a mix parentage of Eastern and Western Highlands Province.
Dalilah was born with two holes in her heart, scientifically explained as congenital heart defects, namely ventricular septal defect (VSD) and atrial septal defect (ASD).
That is, there are holes in the septums between both the two ventricles and the two atriums.
Local cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Noah Tapaua explained that because of this, oxygenated blood has been shunting across the defects and mixing with non- oxygenated blood.
This results in less oxygen to the rest of the body and causes lungs to be congested resulting in recurrent pneumonia. Because of this, she had heart failure and failure to thrive.
Tapaua said her operation was done using the heart-lung bypass machine where the heart was stopped, opened and both defects were repaired.
He confirmed that she is recovering well and may discharge soon.
“Her story is one of the many stories of patients we have in the country who are waiting to have their operation and she is fortunate to have hers and will now live a normal life,” said Tapaua.
Dalilah’s mother Agnes was speechless, with tears in her eyes, she was very thankful that her daughter was strong and survived two operations last week.
She said the first operation was difficult and lasted for six hours but Dalilah was a fighter and continues to smile after the operation.
“Dalilah is very obedient and takes her medication every day and even joins me in prayer when I asked her to,” Agnes said smiling.
When visited this week at the hospital, Dalilah sat quietly and happily ate her food as she listened to conversations and observed people moving around in her ward.
Picture courtesy of Justin Tkatchenko Facebook page
Caption: OIH staff helping a patient that also had undergone the open heart surgery.