34 - Wednesday, May 11,

HEART SURGERY is a medical

procedure usually associated with

adults, but-at Children's Hospital

in Vancouver an average of three
“children a week are operated on
. for heart problems.

Heart surgery utilizes a lot of
blood. The routine requirement for
children undergcing heart surgery
is five units of red blood cells,
three units of plasma and two units
of platelets, according to Carol
Stanley, head technologist for the

blood bank at Children’s Hospital. »

“Most ‘adult heart’ surgery’ is

bypass Surgery required because of.

“blocked vessels.: The problem is
totally different with children.

Most children who:need surgery.

are born with a heart problem,”’.:
says Dr. Bonnie Massing, associate
haemopathologist
Hospital.

: According to Massing, the ma-.
” jority of child heart’ surgery ‘pa-
_ tients . are suffering from .what

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non-medical people call ‘‘a hole in
the heart.”’

The heart has four chambers.
The ‘top two take in. blood while
the bottom two pump.the blood to
the rest of the body. Children with
a “hole in the heart’? have ‘some
type of defect in the wall that sep-
arates cither the top two chambers
or the bottom two chambers.

Statistics indicate ‘that  cight
children per. 1,000 live births are
bora with a heart defect. Massing
points out that not all of these —
children will require surgery. a

“Some perforations will close on
their own. A child is only operated
on if the heart is unable to keep up
‘with the body' s demands," she
: said,

While the typical heart. surgery®

Children’s. is only. two |

! heart surgery is per-
formed ‘on children. ranging in age
from newborn to tcenagers.

Following surgery.

kids ©

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Blood needed for children’ s heart

heart: patients are sent ta the In-
tensive Care Unit until they are
strong eriough to go to the cardiac
ward. During the recovery phase
the children often require addi-
tional blood products if they expe-
rience - post-operative bleeding or
have problems with blood clotting,
according to Stanley.

The advances in heart surgery
for children during the past 20
years have resulted in thousands of
, children living to adulthood who
"would -previously have died of
heart failure.

Hearst surgery for children i is on-

ly one example of how a miracle of
modern medicine has’ placed
greater demands on the Red Cross
volunteer blood donor: program.

Today. blood is utilized more than ©

ever before and the need for vol-
unteer donors is greater than ever.

The following is a list of upcom- ,

ing blood donor. clinics. on the
North Shore: :

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