VELLORE: The Vellore Midtown Rotary Club in association with Apollo Hospitals, Chennai and Vellore police department is organising a free heart screening camp on Saturday and Sunday at the Kodai Idi Kuppusamy Higher Secondary School campus. According to R S Prabhakaran, president of the club, this is the second camp in the series. The first one was held in 2010. The purpose of the camp is to screen children below the age of 16 for congenital heart diseases, and adults for coronary heart diseases (CHD).In 2010, when Rotary Club had organised a similar camp, as many as 950 children were screened, of which 124 were diagnosed with heart ailments. These children were operated at Apollo Hospital, free of cost, in the next 45 days.Talking about the camp, doctors Neville Solomon, paediatric surgeon and C S Muthukumaran, senior interventional pediatric cardiologist, from Apollo, said that one in every 125 children born in the country every year was prone to CHD which could be detected during the 18th week of pregnancy. Only 15,000 children get an opportunity to undergo surgery and lead normal lives, while others don’t even get an opportunity to avail treatment most are from poor backgrounds.As part of corporate social responsibility, Apollo has teamed up with Rotary clubs and has so far screened around 9,700 children across the State.During the camp held in 2010, it was found that many children from Ambur and Vaniyambadi areas suffered from CHD. So far, Rotary and Apollo Hospital’s efforts have saved around 539 children from heart ailments.
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