JKCI targets heart transplants in Tanzania within five years

Dar es Salaam. The Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI) has started initial preparations for heart transplants and expects to start performing the operation in the country in the next five years.

The move comes five years after Tanzania started performing kidney transplants at Muhimbili National Hospital.

Speaking to the media this week about the institute’s achievements, the JKCI executive director, Dr Peter Kisenge, said they have a budget of Sh66.3 billion for the 2023/24 financial year.

Plans that will be implemented with the budget include educating their professionals and officially starting preparations for heart transplants to be offered within five years.

"We expect to perform the first heart transplant at JKCI within the next five years. This programme has its preparations and already we, as an institute, have started preparing ourselves for that," he said.

Regarding the procedure that will be used, Dr Kisenge said, "Heart transplant has its stages because that is an organ from another person, so what to be done will involve someone who has committed themselves in writing to donate their heart to someone else. In developed countries, people agree in writing without any problem to donate their hearts upon their deaths."

Dr Kisenge mentioned the costs of the service, saying that a certain patient who was being treated at JKCI successfully underwent a heart transplant in India where he spent more than Sh200 million and stayed there for two months before being discharged.

He noted that there are many heart patients needing the service and that in their preparations, there will be rules to be passed for people to donate their hearts and that the actual costs of the service will be made public.

One of the heart patients, Mr Kibwana Dachi, said the institute’s plans are a good thing and a big step, noting that many patients have been going abroad for such a treatment using a lot of money.

"Our Tanzanian population is 61 million, it is a big number, if 1,000 people will need that service, the government will fail and families to make financial contributions for treatment will be difficult as well.

“If we launch this service in Tanzania, the costs will likely be lower, as in the case of coronary artery services, whose cost is only Sh6 million that families can possibly afford to contribute," said Mr Dachi.

Dr Kisenge clarifies that a heart that is tired and cannot do its work well is transplanted from the person, who is ready to donate his/her heart voluntarily, giving the example of a person who has had an accident and can no longer survive, his heart is removed and kept in a special container and in a short time rushed for heart surgery.

Since everyone has one heart, the Director for Cardiovascular Medicine at JKCI, Dr Problema Waane said in order for someone to donate his/her organ to another person, there are many preparations that need to be made.

"There is personal information in the entire system of emergency services in order to be able to find those contributory patients (donors) who may be giving or donating their hearts to other people," said Dr Waane.

Dr Waane, who is also a cardiologist, said that in developed countries, some of their citizens, who are not sufferers, donate their heart organs after giving permission.

"They give permission that when they have some health problems that can cause them to be unable to continue living, they allow the various organs of their bodies be donated, it could be the kidney, heart or liver," said Dr Waane.

Dr Kisenge said that the JKCI also offers research training and serves 500 outpatients each passing day and those who are admitted per week are 130.

He said that the number of patients undergoing major open chest surgery, blood vessels and lung surgery per day are numbering six.

"Through the Cathlab machines, 14 patients are examined per day and have their blood vessels of the heart opened and fitted with cardiac assistive devices," he said.

He said the statistics for the year 2022/2023 JKCI show that there were 122,362 patients out of whom, 111,542 were adults and 10,820 children and those admitted were 4,407 out of whom, 3,286 were adults and 1,121 children.

Dr Kisenge said the cost of treatment for the 2,760 patients, who underwent major and minor heart surgery at JKCI if they were treated abroad, would be Sh62.34 billion.

"Here at JKCI, their treatment has cost Sh31.17 billion met by health insurance, relatives and benefactors, while other patients were granted free medical treatment. By these patients being treated in the country, the government has saved Sh31.17 billion," he said.

Over the past year, he said, JKCI treated 301 patients from Somalia, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, Comoros, Ethiopia and Burundi, among other countries.