A Child's Heart Repair Might not Last a Lifetime

There are many people out there who suffer from heart problems, but continue to live. Recently, there was another case found. Few of the people who survive a lifetime with their heart repair even get cardiac checkups.
Sadly, this isn't the same anymore. Now, more and more children are born with the need of heart repair. Very few cardiologists in the children's hospitals know how to take care of their hearts. 
Dr. Karen Kuehl, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's National Medical Center in Washington says, "The disease as an adult is completely different than the other kinds of heart disease adults get. Here are people in their early young adulthood who have thought that they went through this (childhood surgery) and they were going to be fine. In fact, we don't know that. Now we're seeing things nobody would have predicted.' She has recently helped open one of the nation's few specialty clinics for adults with congenital heart disease.
Until 1970, open-heart surgery for young children and babies wasn't common. Now, more than 95% of babies who suffer from this dreadful defect grow up and live normal lives. However, only those who will get this surgery done will be able to survive.
There was help for this case:

• Williams is co-writing new tips for treating adult patients who suffer from heart problems. Williams advice regards not only cardiologists, but other doctors as well.
• Patient advocates and cardiologists are urging for funding for the National Institutes of Health to open the first registry to track long-term health.
• This registry could assist in uncovering of 35 diverse cardiac deficiencies are most likely to cause problems that will happen late-in-life, determining who needs specialty care and who will do fine with a general physician's checkups.

Dr. George Ruiz of the Washington Hospital Center says, "There's a setup for people to fall between the cracks. I don't mean to say we're going to die or do poorly," stresses Amy Verstappen of the Adult Congenital Heart Association, the advocacy group. "But we are likely to need re-operations, likely to develop things like heart arrhythmias where we're going to need additional care. Better to get it sooner than later'.  Most reasons for the patients to return back to his office are complains of heart-aches. This could have also been prevented if insurance had cardiologists who knew what they were doing.