Doctor Tappoo says two weeks ago, a team screened 189 children in Labasa, of which 18 were diagnosed with congenital heart disease. [File Photo]

Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital Director, Doctor Krupali Tappoo says more children are now being detected with congenital heart defects.

Doctor Tappoo says two weeks ago, a team screened 189 children in Labasa, of which 18 were diagnosed with congenital heart disease.

She adds of this 18, four had to be operated on at the hospital in Nasese, Suva a few days ago.

“We have screened over 3000 children and of which we know we have picked over 7 percent as having new cases of congenital heart disease so that’s quite a high number and definitely there are children out there. We going to increase our efforts in doing more screening in rural and remote areas as well.”

Doctor Tappoo adds with the increasing number of cases, plans are also to bring in visiting teams who can conduct surgeries.

“They really may not have to wait long because some of the children that were detected two weeks ago in Labasa actually had their surgery this time around so they didn’t really have to wait much at all because we getting teams very frequently now. Our vision is every two months or so and slowly every month and eventually have our own local team that can do all of the surgery.”

Doctor Tappoo says another visiting team is expected to arrive from Singapore next month.