The trust will act as a conduit for receiving monetary and material donations from around the world to supplement the Ministry of Health & Social Services annual budget.
There is a high incidence and prevalence of CHD and other acquired heart diseases among children and adults in Namibia, collectively resulting in profound morbidity and premature mortality.
With support from the University of Cape Town, we currently have an electronic database to accurately measure the incidence and prevalence of CHD in Namibia. Additionally, we have started studying the genomics (genetic origins) in the affected cohort.
The Trust was established and registered as a section 21 as T357/2022, not for profit, benevolent entity to support the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MOHSS) through its sole national referral centre, Windhoek Central Hospital. The operations are conducted under the clauses established in the trust deed.
CHD care is complex and generally involves highly specialised material infrastructure and multi-disciplinary teams. Medical, transcatheter (percutaneous) and surgical treatments strategies are employed in a mutually complimentary manner.
Given the heterogenous and complex nature of CHD, there are certain lesions where a ‘non-interventional paradigm’ is prescribed. Similarly, some patients are destined to mechanical support and heart transplantation as destination therapies. The latter services are not yet available in Namibia.
The executive committee/ board of trustees is constituted of founding trustees with sub-committees ( capital works, audit and risk, investment, fundraising etc.) as per guidance provided in the trust deed. Independent auditors and a legal entity were elected as mandatory constituent elements towards the operations of the trust. These individuals collectively conduct the duties of the trust, ensuring goal execution to meet intended objectives.
All parties involved in the trust will agree to the terms of the trust trust inclusive of formal disclosures of no conflict of interest, as they conduct their trust duties.
The trustees are expected to observe the highest standards of professional and ethical behaviour as stipulated in the agreed trust’s code of conduct. The core ethical principles e.g., beneficence (do good), non-maleficence (do no harm), autonomy ( freedom of expression and choice) and social justice will be adhered to at both the clinical and trust’s levels of function.
1. Income and expenditure
An annual report will be drafted by the independent auditors assigned for purpose. These reports are to be shared in the trust’s scheduled sessional meetings.
2. Clinical outcomes
Monthly morbidity and mortality meetings are to be conducted at the institutional level for both surgical and transcatheter outcomes. Equally, independent audit is conducted by the Boston Children’s Hospital based International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Disease, with the aim improving our standard of care, while benchmarking our performance relative to other congenital heart centres.
The trust shall continue instituting the ‘twinning’ strategy with experienced institutions, namely: University of Cape Town affiliated Red Cross War Memorial Children Hospital and other overseas centres of excellence in order to successfully develop and grow our local service well in alignment with the highest international standards.
Equally, we have sought collaboration and administrative support from other non-profit entities and/or organisations
sharing similar objectives e.g., Children HeartLink, Healing Little Hearts as well as the Red Cross Children’s Trust based at the Red Cross Children War Memorial Hospital in Cape Town.
In the past - we have had transcatheter interventions' with Dr Oliver Stumper from Birmingham as well as surgical camps with Prof Johan Brink from Cape Town and the Healing Little Hearts teams mostly from Great Britain under the leads of Ram Dhannapuneni and Mohammed Nassar. We have also been fortunate enough to receive support from Medtronic, First Rand foundation ( FNB) and the Pupkewitz foundation.
