In Rhythm: Mount Carmel Team Helping Bring Advanced Cardiac Care to Sub-Saharan Africa

According to the Foundation for Cardiac Care in Africa, there are only a few cardiac training centers in Africa now, and no clear way for African countries to rapidly develop cardiac care for their people. Thankfully, doctors and teams from around the world are working to change that, including a team from Mount Carmel.

Dr. Kamel Addo, a cardiac electrophysiologist with the Mount Carmel Medical Group Heart & Vascular Center, recently led a team of Mount Carmel physicians, nurses and staff on a medical mission trip to Ghana to teach advanced heart procedures to local cardiologists.

“A charitable organization called My Heart Your Heart from the University of Michigan has an FDA-approved process for refurbishing used pacemakers and making them available for free for implant in patients outside the United States,” Dr. Addo shared. “Another UK-based group called Arrhythmia Alliance - Pace4Life sends teams to teach the pacemaker implantation procedures in other parts of the world.”

Through his affiliation with the two groups and two local cardiologists in Tamale, a city in northern Ghana, Dr. Addo was chosen to lead an effort to set up a pacemaker implantation program there. A team of 3 nurses and staff from the EP labs at Mount Carmel volunteered to get the program up and running. And with the help of a Ghanaian surgeon friend of Dr. Addo’s and a cardiac device specialist from Boston Scientific, they made their first trip to the medically underserved Ghanaian community of Tamale in November 2023.

The team from Mount Carmel collaborated with the local team of doctors and nurses in Tamale to implant the first three pacemakers ever to be implanted in northern Ghana. At the end of the trip, they left the Tamale team with supplies and equipment to do 10 more pacemaker implants.

“Everyone who came along had a teaching role,” Dr. Addo recalled. “Our goal was knowledge and skills transfer, which cannot be achieved in one trip. It’s definitely a long-term project. It will take years to impart the training we’ll need to do, but we are committed to this mission and the need is great.”

This first trip was funded through Arrhythmia Alliance – Pace4Life, and most of the surgical supplies were generously donated by Mount Carmel. The group is gathering more supplies from across the system now for future trips, and the Mount Carmel Foundation is considering providing additional support.

Ultimately Dr. Addo’s goal is to collaborate with local doctors to create an electrophysiology lab in Ghana and introduce cutting-edge procedures like catheter ablations to sub-Saharan Africa, where there is a great need for this service.

“That’s the ultimate goal,” he acknowledged. “It’s a much tougher task, though. We’ll need capital-intensive equipment, which we hope we can have donated by American hospitals when they upgrade those technologies. If we can facilitate that, we would be a lot closer to bringing the latest heart rhythm treatments to more countries, communities, and patients in need.”

For now, Dr. Addo is incredibly grateful for everyone at Mount Carmel who has already given so much to the project.

“Everyone has been extremely generous with their time and energy,” he said. “The volunteer team members took time away from their families to plan for and make this trip, which is a big sacrifice. But they understand the need and they want to help. Sharing what they know can make a difference, and they are. That’s living the Mission.”

If you’d like to contribute to the worldwide effort to bring advanced heart care to Africa during Heart Month, please consider donating to the non-profit Arrhythmia Alliance, an international clearinghouse for these life-saving efforts.