Malcolm Jones – Winona, Miss.
At 13 years old, Malcolm Jones probably had only a few days left to live. He was born with congenital heart disease and was suffering from a failed left ventricle, which meant he would surely die of heart failure. But after a nearly hopeless wait, during which he had been refused at other facilities, Malcolm found his heart at Batson Children’s Hospital, part of University of Mississippi Health Care. Malcolm’s surgery was the first pediatric heart transplant performed in 8 years at the hospital. “We want to be able to take care of our own,” said Jorge Salazar, M.D., associate professor of surgery, chief of congenital heart surgery and director of the congenital heart program. He credits Mississippi Medicaid with helping to get the hospital’s new pediatric heart transplant program going. And Malcolm is just the first of many children who will benefit from the program. “The most important thing is that the children of Mississippi, and really the whole region, now have a very high level transplant program available to them,” Salazar said. “They don’t have to leave home anymore.”