Healthy Lungs is a unique practice as it serves primarily paediatric pulmonology patients – children with lung problems.
The rooms at Vincent Pallotti hospital in Pinelands, close to the N2, offer convenient access from Cape Town’s southern suburbs and the greater Cape Town area.
What is a paediatric pulmonologist?
A paediatric pulmonologist is a specialist paediatrician. Before specialising as a pulmonologist, a doctor needs to qualify as a paediatrician. An additional two years of training in lung diseases of childhood is required, followed by a certificate exam.
Practice philosophy
Dr Lakhan sees children of all ages, from newborns to 18 years old. She sees children with chest problems like asthma, wheeze, prolonged cough, complicated chest infections (pneumonia), cystic fibrosis, bronchiectasis, bronchiolitis, protracted bronchitis, gastro-oesophageal reflux, congenital lung diseases, lung disease of prematurity, lung diseases associated with neuromuscular disorders and sleep apnoea.
Dr Lakhan also treats children with allergic diseases such as eczema and allergic rhinitis (“hay fever”), as they often occur together with lung problems. Most children that come to see her have been sick for quite some time and not diagnosed or on appropriate treatment.
Having a child with a chronic illness or special needs can create a lot of anxiety in the family unit. During your consultation, she does her best to explain your child’s condition and the available treatment options, including the benefits, risks and costs of these options.
About Dr Lakhan
Dr Lakhan completed her undergraduate medical training at the University of the KwaZulu Natal in 2006. She specialized in paediatrics at the University of Stellenbosch, graduated with a masters’ degree and was admitted as a fellow of the college of paediatricians (SA) in 2016.
She was interested in asthma and allergies in children and chose this as her research topic: CMV Viral Load as a predictor of the clinical course of CMV-associated pneumonia in HIV infected and uninfected infants.
She trained as a paediatric pulmonology fellow at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town for two years (2018-2020). She is currently completing her Masters in Philosophy at the University of Cape Town.
