RPT - US-Based Medical Group Conducts 10 Surgeries In Russia For First Time Since Pandemic

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th May, 2021) An international group of pediatric cardiologists from the US-based Novick Cardiac Alliance has resumed trips to Russia's city of Kemerovo to perform surgeries there after they were temporarily suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the organization Bill Novick told Sputnik.

"Our team operated on ten patients ranging from infants to mid-age children. The diagnoses were from moderate to complex," Novick said about the two-week trip.

Novick noted that one of the children had a cardiac arrest and the doctors put the child on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) - a small by-pass machine - to support the heart and blood pressure, after which the medical staff took the child back to the operating room.

"The team did the absolute right things for this child," Novick said. "They were able to take the child off the ECMO machine a couple of days later, close the chest and localize the infection in the nasal sinuses, drained both of those sinuses, and the child got better."

The next trip is scheduled for late August - early September, he added.

Novick and his colleagues have conducted more than 400 surgeries in Russia since 2008. The Novick Cardiac Alliance comprises a group of medical specialists from different countries who usually work in different "hot spots" around the world. Previously, the group has performed surgeries in several Russian cities, including in Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod.