‘Open heart surgery has 20 per cent mortality rate’

The Chief Medical Director, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, Dr. Chris Amah, has described open heart surgery as a “very high risk operation” with its mortality rate, sometimes up to 20 percent at the hospital.
 So far, seven out of 10 adults and about five children out of 12 have undergone open heart surgery in the current 14th  edition of the programme at the UNTH Ituku-Ozalla.
 Briefing newsmen in Enugu, Dr Amah said some of the mortality arising from children’s open heart surgeries was attributable to complications due to late referral of their cases.
 He recalled that when in 2013 the management of UNTH reactivated the open heart surgery programme which was moribund for a decade, the mortality rate during the operations was about 10 to 20 per cent, although he emphasized that over time, with experience and efficiency, the situation had improved.