Indian Ocean: promoting access to heart surgery for disadvantaged children

Following on from its actions in the Comoros and Madagascar, La Chaîne de l'Espoir is rolling out a global support and training project aimed at preventing, screening and treating pediatric heart disease in the Indian Ocean region.

In the Indian Ocean, congenital heart defects affect around 1% of births. However, local medical staff often lack adequate training, and public health systems have limited capacity to treat these conditions. What’s more, the population is generally unaware of cardio-pediatric diseases. To address these challenges, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has rehabilitated a pediatric cardiac surgery unit at CENHOSOA in Madagascar.

Training missions are organized for local healthcare professionals, complemented by tele-echography sessions via our echoes® program, enabling Comorian and Madagascan cardiologists to benefit from the remote expertise of specialists from the Félix Guyon University Hospital in La Réunion and the Nantes University Hospital. A referral system has also been set up to identify children in need of surgery, enabling them to be treated either in Madagascar or La Réunion.

This project is based on close collaboration between the CHU Félix Guyon on La Réunion, the Centre hospitalier de Soavinandriana (CENHOSOA) in Madagascar and the Union of the Comoros. The aim is to strengthen the skills of healthcare professionals, raise community awareness and guarantee comprehensive medical and psychosocial care for children and their families.