**3.1.2 Ignorance about CHD even among health workers**

Ignorance about CHD even among health workers, leading to frequent non-diagnosis or mis-diagnosis with wrong treatment and /or inappropriate counseling (LeBlanc, 2009). Heart disease is often wrongly assumed to be rare or very unlikely in children, so that its index of suspicion among health workers is very low. It is therefore not uncommon for children with CHD to have been treated for various other conditions such as tuberculosis or asthma before being eventually referred to a specialist that makes the correct diagnosis. The parents of a child with tetralogy of Fallot who were both health workers for example, had resigned themselves to his early demise as they were told no definitive treatment existed. He presented to a tertiary centre with endocarditis at 10 years of age and after a turbulent admission eventually had his heart lesion repaired in another country. Though his heart is 'healed', he now suffers from a seizure disorder.
