an update from the heart

Last week, I got to spend a day in the operating room with the cardiac team. Pretty amazing to see what God is doing through Tenwek’s heart program!

Bob Groom, perfusionist, gives a brief on today’s case.

Praying over the patient before surgery. This patient is a 25 year old boy who has been sick with rheumatic heart disease for 12 years. His family could not afford the approximately $10,000 surgery, so his condition has worsened over time. Kenya’s National Health Insurance Fund eventually helped pay for about half of the cost. His surgeons were able to successfully replace two valves in his heart.

Dr. Keith Dindi, Cardiothoracic Surgery fellow at Tenwek Hospital. He is one of 4 Cardiothoracic fellows currently training at Tenwek.

• 

On the left: Dr. J Michael Smith is a volunteer cardiac surgeon from Cincinnati, Ohio who shared his time, talent and expertise with the cardiac team for two weeks. On the right: Dr. Keith Dindi.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Inside “Theatre” – Tenwek’s operating rooms. Tenwek Hospital is doing about 200 open heart surgeries a year, mostly valve replacements as a result of rheumatic heart disease. The average age of these heart patients is between 8-18 years old.

Now that the resident apartments are completed (and almost all 20 units are occupied!), construction continues on the future Billy Graham Memorial Cardiothoracic Center at Tenwek Hospital.

I met Dr. Smith in October 2019 when he served at Tenwek for the first time. Dr. Smith is a reminder of one of the reasons I love my job with Friends of Tenwek – getting to know amazing people like him! We spent many hours around the guesthouse dinner table chatting about family, work, life – and how to journey with Christ in all of these things. I cherish these conversations. I want to be more like Tenwek’s volunteers – people who give themselves freely to God’s Kingdom.

To learn more about Tenwek’s cardiac program, click here.