Seventeen life-saving heart surgeries will be performed in Guyana between September 28 and October 2, followed by another medical mission in December during which 10 additional children will undergo surgery, as the Government moves to address all outstanding congenital heart cases by the first quarter of 2027.
President Dr Irfaan Ali outlined the plans Saturday during an engagement at State House with parents of children requiring specialised cardiac care.
The Government has engaged Apollo Health Systems of India to conduct the upcoming five-day medical mission. The 17 scheduled surgeries will involve children with congenital heart defects, with some patients requiring more than one procedure.
Approximately 40 children are currently awaiting specialised congenital heart surgery.
Following the September-October mission, the Government will facilitate another mission in December, during which 10 additional children are expected to undergo surgery.
President Ali said the Government is putting the necessary systems in place to ensure that the remaining cases are addressed by the first quarter of 2027.
The initiative represents another step in the Government’s wider effort to modernise Guyana’s healthcare system and bring increasingly complex, world-class medical services directly to Guyanese patients.
In the past, children requiring certain specialised cardiac procedures had to be sent overseas, including to the United States and Canada. Government figures previously placed the cost of some paediatric cardiac surgeries overseas at between US$30,000 and US$50,000 per patient, while more recent estimates for complex procedures have reached as high as US$150,000.
The Government has increasingly invested in specialised medical personnel, training, infrastructure and advanced technology to build the capacity to perform complex procedures locally, reducing both the financial burden and disruption faced by families seeking treatment abroad.
That effort reached a major milestone in May when Guyana participated in the world’s longest-distance cardiac telesurgery. Internationally renowned cardiac surgeon Dr Sudhir Srivastava, operating from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, used the SSI Mantra 3 robotic surgical system to perform a coronary artery bypass graft on a patient in India approximately 20,000 kilometres away.
On the same day, Srivastava performed a robotic repair of an atrial septal defect — a congenital heart condition — on a Guyanese patient at GPHC, demonstrating the expanding capacity for advanced cardiac procedures to be performed locally.
The Government has said its investment in robotic surgery and other advanced technologies forms part of a broader strategy to establish Guyana as a regional centre for specialised healthcare while training Guyanese medical professionals to use the technology.
For the upcoming paediatric cardiac mission, the Government will also provide transportation for the children and accommodation for those travelling from outside Georgetown.
The programme is intended not only to clear the existing backlog but to establish greater local capacity so that Guyanese children requiring critical cardiac interventions can increasingly receive treatment at home rather than having to travel overseas.