Team up with cardiothoracic surgery, scrub nurses- who assist surgeons in the operating room, anaesthetic doctors, medical experts who pass on the necessary equipment as required by surgeons, anaesthetic technicians, bio-medical engineers and perfusionists who operate the heart-lung machine.

Bring the heart patient or patients to the operating theatre(s) where they are scheduled to undergo open heart surgeries. Heart suggeries are done after being diagnosed.

The team of experts that is to perform Dacron patch closure or banding in the theatre must be ready with their equipment.

Lay the heart patient on the operating table in preparation to put him /her to sleep using anaesthetic drugs, special injections or any other medically approved method.

Depending on how the heart patient responds to high oxygen, the doctors operating the heart may continue with the heart repairs or put a band on the iota, to regulate the amount of blood that flows to the lungs Pulmonary artery.  This is done only on heart patients who are unable to withstand the open heart surgery procedures.

Then the heart patient is connected to the aneasthetic machine which must have a monitor that displays the electrical activity of the heart, the pressure in the heart, arteries, the beating speed of the heart and temperature.

The heart doctor marks the part of the heart to be opened. The doctor opens the heart using an electro cautery machine, which generates electrical energy. The electro cautery machine generates heat which helps to prevent bleeding when the heart is opened. The doctors halve the heart with a retractor before the surgery. At this point, the heart function is stopped.

The heart-lung machine is used to provide blood flow and respiration for the patient. The surgeons perform coronary artery bypass grafting or repair cardiac anomalies on the heart. Note that during the operation the heart must be preserved every after 25 minutes.

After the operation, the doctors allow the patient’s heart to resume its normal function, and the heart-lung machine immediately stopped. The patient is then connected to an artificial device that helps breathing for patients who are unable to draw in and out air by their own. After some minutes, the heart beat becomes normal, smaller tube called chest drainage tube is inserted to help in draining fluids that may remain after the surgery and the surgeons embark on stitching the chest. Source of information: congenital heart surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine and Heart Institute Mulago, KampalaUganda.

By Walakira Nyanzi, health news expert at Ultimate Media

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