Perioperative complications in a paediatric cardiac surgery program with limited systemic resources.

In a program with limited systemic resources, failure-to-rescue is a major contributor to operative mortality in paediatric cardiac surgery. Despite the comparable crude mortality, the operative mortality among patients with perioperative complications in our series was significantly higher than in the developed world. A number of initiatives are needed in order to improve failure-to-rescue rates in low- and middle-income countries.