In February, three UNC interventional cardiologists and a team of dedicated health care professionals travelled to Nicaragua to perform a life-saving, minimally invasive procedure on as many patients as they could, and to bring the best in cardiac care to a country without heart surgeons.
(Reprinted with permission from the UNC Health Care Newsroom.)
For many Nicaraguans, a diagnosis of a heart condition such as mitral valve stenosis – a debilitating complication that can be the end result of untreated strep throat – is grim news that offers little in the way of hope.
“If patients have the money, they can travel to another country to receive care, said Michael Yeung, MD, a UNC interventional cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. “If they don’t have the money, they die.”
To help bridge this enormous gap, Yeung, along with a group of UNC experts including John Vavalle, MD, MPH, Alan Hinderliter, MD, Lucius Howell, MD, Joshua Vega, MD, Roman Baczara, RN, and Charlene Marie Whayne, RN, travelled to Leon, Nicaragua, as part of medical mission called Project Health Leon, aimed at bringing life-saving, high-level medical expertise to a country with no heart surgeons and not enough cardiologists to meet the developing nation’s medical needs.
“There were a lot of unknowns when we went wheels up at RDU – customs, the state of the operating room, the availability of imaging equipment,” said Medicine Cardiologist John Vavalle, MD. “And many of these patients had to travel a long way to get to the clinic, so we weren’t sure they’d be able to get there on time. We went to great lengths to ensure success but it was a leap of faith.”
To read the full story, visit the UNC Health Care Newsroom.