Crusader with a big heart

By Evelyne Ogutu

It was never her dream career while growing up. In fact for the middle-aged Elizabeth Gatumia, it was something she did out of desperation. The then young mother frantically needed money to cater for her two toddlers.

Elizabeth had given birth to her two sons while still a student at the University of Nairobi and needed money to cater for her young family.

However, this has propelled Elizabeth to the current career in the NGO world.

"It was very stressful then. My babies would cry the whole night. It was tough financially doubling as a student and a mother," Elizabeth recalls. Hence any job that came her way was welcome.

After graduating from UoN she joined VoK (now KBC) as the radio teacher in the schools broadcasts programme.

However, after four years she was transferred to host, Good Morning Kenya, a current Affairs programme which run every morning. This is the assignment that changed Elizabeth and propelled her to establish the Kenyan-Heart National Foundation.

For the two years she hosted the programme, she received several appeal letters from parents whose children had heart ailments and needed urgent assistance. "Majority of them were suffering from Rheumatic Heart disease, a condition which can be cured if detected early.

"This distressed me a lot and I would ask my producer to allow me feature one of the suffering children and majority of them received assistance. I thank God I did not send any away," she recalls.

From presenting Good Morning Kenya, as fate would have it, Elizabeth was moved to hosting Medical Journal, which was also aired on KBC. This acted as a launching pad for her current job—CEO of Kenyan Heart National Foundation

Moved to compassion

"After hosting Medical Journal for close to three years, I had learnt a lot in the medical field since we would invite medical doctors who would talk about various ailments. I had a soft spot for assisting heart patients with publicity and they would get sponsors," she says.

Having freelanced for ten years at KBC, she left and joined Heart to Heart Foundation in 2001 where she was in charge of fundraising and publicity. She worked for the foundation until 2003.

"I did not last long at Heart to Heart Foundation and I quit to start Kenyan-Heart National Foundation, a Medical Charity which seeks to raise public awareness and education on heart disease, with more emphasis on prevention," she says.

Kenyan-Heart National Foundation is an initiative of the World Heart Federation, the umbrella body for all National Heart Foundations Worldwide, in collaboration with the African Heart Network, which is the umbrella body for all National Heart Foundations in Africa.

"At the foundation, we emphasise on prevention, especially of diseases like Rheumatic heart condition, which if detected earlier can be cured. It will not even need the open heart surgery, which many children undergo," she says.

Early detection

Elizabeth says unknown to many, Rheumatic Heart Disease starts like Tonsillitis before it develops to Rheumatic fever and finally it becomes a heart disease.

The graduate of Alliance Girls High School says such a disease is preventable at an earlier stage but it is always confused with either tonsillitis or sore throat hence her organisation has started education programme on how to detect the disease.

Elizabeth says her foundation holds Rheumatic Heart Disease Prevention Seminars for church representatives and community leaders whereby they are taught on how to detect the disease at its early stage.

These seminars are significant since church and community based leaders have direct contact with members of the community and are therefore instrumental in passing on the message explains Elizabeth.

Other initiatives

Besides the seminars, Elizabeth has also initiated the "Kenyan-Heart Talking Walls" whose aim is to spread the message of heart disease prevention through early detection of a strep-sore-throat and prompt treatment of the same and this has been done in 155 schools.

"This information is targeted at the school-going-children and the neighbouring communities that come to the School whereby symptoms of a Strep-Sore-Throat are clearly painted on a conspicuous school wall that are visible at all times like the assembly ground or at the school’s gate.

"Since Rheumatic Heart Disease is a disease of damaged heart valves, we also paint a heart-diagram on the same wall, to indicate where heart valves are located and the flow of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood into and out of the heart. This heart painting has also become an important teaching aid for schools," explains Elizabeth.

Besides the walls, Elizabeth’s foundation has also introduced in schools the Kenyan-Heart Clubs which are run and overseen by the Kenyan-Heart Trainer of Trainers, head-teachers and teachers who have been trained through the Rheumatic Heart Disease capacity building seminars.

"Some of the activities that are carried out by the Kenyan-Heart Clubs are performing arts — songs, dances, skits, poems and also sport activities like skipping-ropes, games competition, tug of war, water bucket and gymnastics.

We need to teach our children the importance of exercise as it also contributed to a healthy body," notes Elizabeth.

Elizabeth says the foundation encourages such events where the Kenyan-Heart Clubs showcase their creative activities with the aim of spreading the message of Rheumatic Heart disease prevention.

She says, since they begun the foundation, four years ago, they have sponsored two children for an open-heart surgery which cost them over Sh1.2 million.

Expensive disease

According to Elizabeth, the eighth born in a close knit family of ten, it is very expensive to treat a heart patient hence urges organisations involved in the treatment of heart disease to spread the message of prevention.

"To buy one artificial valve costs between Sh80,000 to Sh100,000 hence most Kenyans cannot afford to treat a heart patient especially one who is scheduled to undergo an open-heart surgery. The procedure is very expensive besides the daily medication that one has to continue taking all her or his life. Prevention is better than cure," she says.

She is now advising parents to take their children for tests once they detect sore throats or tonsillitis as this could be the initial stages of rheumatic heart disease.

"Many mothers tell their children to gurgle warm salty water whenever they have a sore throat but sometimes this is a sign of a deadly heart disease which if detected earlier it can be cured," adds Elizabeth.

Elizabeth says due to the ignorance of many Kenyans on the disease many children below five years have fallen victim to the heart condition which wears out all the valves.

According her, the initial stages of the condition, presents itself like Malaria or a common cold with symptoms like sudden sore throat, fever and also the child might have difficult when swallowing saliva hence go undetected, for this reason, she is urging Kenyans not to take casually any sudden sore throat.