Major setback for Centurion heart op toddler

A Centurion toddler who recently underwent a five-hour open-heart surgery at Steve Biko hospital has suffered a major setback, Rekord Centurion reports.

Despite the initial success of his surgery, Nathan Swanepoel’s heart rate fell on Monday evening, resulting in doctors having to perform CPR.

“He is very critical but remains stable at this time,” said mom Stephanie.

“His body needs oxygen but doctors cannot give him too much. His platelets remain very low and this has resulted in blood in his urine.”

Stephanie said she and Nathan’s father, Frans, had been at the hospital since 04:00 on Tuesday morning.

“We are heartbroken and dead tired but we are praying very hard for Nathan.”

Nathan Swanepoel was born with six heart defects in June last year.

Surgery to repair his heart was conducted two weeks ago at Steve Biko academic hospital.

His blood became infected last Tuesday afternoon, causing his doctors to become very concerned.

“His doctors told us he was in a very critical condition and we thought we might lose him during the night,” Stephanie said.

“The same evening he developed sepsis in his blood and his platelet count dropped very low.

“His kidneys and liver were damaged and he had to be put on dialysis which had to be done manually because of his low blood pressure.”