DAMMAM: A lack of donors, not capability, is holding up heart transplant procedures for children under the age of two, Zuhair Al-Halyas, a consultant heart surgeon at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Dammam has said. Al-Halyas also warned against sending under-eights with heart conditions abroad. “Often they won't find a donated heart because those foreign countries give priority to their own citizens,” he said. The two primary reasons for seeking medical treatment abroad, according to Al-Halyas, are a “lack of confidence in doctors in the Kingdom or in the system itself”, and “discretion”. “The lack of confidence is not just in heart surgery, but in all specialized fields, such as cancer,” he said. “The second reason is that patients wish to keep their illness from family and friends, and they tell them instead that they are going abroad for tourism.” He denied, however, that the long waiting list for operations or appointments causes people to seek treatment abroad. “Someone who wants vascular surgery in Britain, for example, has to wait for up to six or ten months.” Al-Halyas said there were several drawbacks to treatment abroad, citing “different religion, homesickness, lack of moral support from family, and language”. “A few rare cases are taken up by psychiatrists,” he added.
