Florida Medical Team on Mission at Bustamante Hospital

Twelve patients at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, in Kingston are getting a new lease on life as they receive cardiovascular paediatric surgery this week, from a team of heart specialists from Florida.
The team comprising 21 medical, paramedical and administrative professionals, headed by Dr. Jeffrey Jacobs from St. Petersburg Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida is currently on a one-week medical mission to Jamaica which began on Monday (March 31). The Florida group is working in collaboration with Dr. Lambert Ennis of the Bustamante Hospital.
According to President of the Caribbean HeartMenders Association (CHMA) of South Florida, Winsome Charlton, so far, the paediatric patients have all returned to a normal life after successful operations.
The group of volunteers is coordinated by the CHMA, a non-profit organization that has been performing life-saving surgeries during medical missions throughout the Caribbean region since 1994.
The CHMA recently raised over US$100,000 to assist in the completion of a new paediatric cardiac intensive care unit at that hospital in Kingston. As the first paediatric cardiac centre in the region, all paediatric cardiovascular surgeries across the region are now performed there.
Since its establishment, members of the organization have facilitated more than 220 surgeries successfully to children suffering from congenital and acquired heart defects in several countries across the Caribbean including the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, and Jamaica.
The group will complete their mission on Friday (April 4).