Save a Child’s Heart
diagnoses, treats and operates on children with life-threatening heart diseases
from developing countries, free of charge.
By Naama Barak, ISRAEL21c
One-year-old Fatma is
crying in her hospital bed, and for good reason – she’s hungry. She hasn’t
eaten since the evening before, in preparation for the open-heart surgery she’s
going to be wheeled into any minute.
Her mother, Balkis, is
trying to soothe her. Nineteen years ago, she herself was in a similar
position, waiting at the very same hospital — Wolfson Medical Center in Holon,
Israel — for lifesaving surgery to repair a heart condition called patent
ductus arteriosus.
But neither 26-year-old
Balkis Makame Haji nor her daughter Fatma are Israeli. They traveled all the
way from Zanzibar for the free surgery with the help of the Save a
Child’s Heart non-profit organization.
Fatma, her mom says,
seemed fine at birth, even weighing a hefty seven pounds. “But when she was
three months old, she started to have frequent fevers, coughs and pneumonia. We
went to the hospital.”
An echocardiogram
revealed that the three-month-old suffered from the same condition her mom did
as a child. “A lot of children have this problem,” Haji explains. “It’s
dangerous because they don’t grow properly.”
Save a Child’s Heart was
on one of its overseas missions at the Zanzibar hospital at the time, screening
some 400 local kids for heart problems. Upon examining Fatma and realizing that
her mother was a previous patient of theirs, SACH doctors decided to fly her
over to Israel for surgery. She is the 5,000th child to be treated through the
organization.
5,000 Kids from 60 Countries
The organization’s
mission to Zanzibar was not a one-off.
Founded in 1995 by
American immigrant and heart surgeon Dr. Ami Cohen, Save a Child’s Heart began
operating at the Wolfson Medical Center, where he worked.
It started out when a
pediatric cardiologist from Ethiopia asked for Cohen’s help with two children
he was treating. They were sent over to Israel for surgery, sparking Cohen’s
mission to help developing countries with pediatric cardiology care.
Doctors operating on
Fatma at the Wolfson Medical Center. (Gil Naor)
To date, the
organization has treated 5,000 children from some 60 countries at Wolfson. It
also trains doctors from these countries at the hospital, and regularly sends
out medical missions to many places across the globe.
All this is carried out
by some 100 doctors and nurses from Wolfson, who volunteer their time and
experience.
One such volunteer is
Dr. Alona Raucher Sternfeld, chief of pediatric cardiology for Wolfson and
SACH. She explains that Fatma’s condition is caused by the remnant of a fetal
blood vessel that should have closed soon after birth.
“There’s a lot of blood
flow across this vessel and this causes pulmonary congestion,” she explains,
noting that children with the condition suffer from respiratory distress, like
the pneumonia syndromes Fatma was experiencing.
“All the caloric intake
is wasted on this breathing effort,” she notes. This is the reason for Fatma’s
low current weight of 13 pounds despite being an otherwise well-developed baby.
Recovering in a Multinational Setting
On the day ISRAEL21c
visited her at the hospital, Fatma underwent open-heart surgery. “The surgery
itself isn’t a very complicated one,” Sternfeld explains. “It involves opening
up the chest from the left side and tying up the defect.”
“It’s lifesaving
surgery. If the defect isn’t closed off, irreparable damage will be caused to
the lungs,” she adds. “It’s about taking someone who without the repair would
die or be very ill and making them healthy.”
“She’ll be a healthy
child, just like her mom is healthy,” the doctor concludes.
Fatma and Haji will have
to stay in Israel for two to three months after the operation for recuperation
and observation. For this purpose, SACH maintains a large, inviting building
near the hospital that can house up to 60 people at any given time – kids and
their accompanying parents and nurses, as well as trainee overseas doctors.
“It can be pretty busy
and pretty noisy later in the day,” laughs house mother Laura Kafif.
The house runs on a
tight but fun schedule, with three key words spoken by all its multinational
inhabitants: kula and kulala (Swahili for “eat” and “sleep”), as well as the
local balagan (“mess”).
Not too bad for a
complex currently housing people from Zanzibar, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda,
Kurdistan, Ethiopia and the Palestinian Authority all at the same time.
After breakfast, Kafif
contacts doctors at the hospital about which kids need to go over for checkups
or treatments. Volunteers from Israel and abroad come and play with the
children for a few hours, either in the spacious house or in its beautiful
garden.
Balkis Makame Haji after
her daughter’s successful open-heart surgery. Photo by Gil Naor
Moms from different
countries cook lunch for their group of compatriots. This, Kafif notes, ensures
that everyone eats the foods they like and greatly comforts the kids away from
home for so long. (Israeli schnitzels, she adds, did not prove to be a hit.)
More volunteers come
over in the afternoon to play with the children until dinner and bedtime.
“We have a great
volunteer team and they do different things with the children that they might
not have had at home,” Kafif says. “Some kids we’ve had in the past have never
done a puzzle.It’s a good place to recuperate because it’s fun. It’s not lying
in bed not being able to move.”
This is especially true
for some of the older kids who arrive in Israel without parents. This happens
because SACH must prioritize how many people it can bring over, and the first
concern is to fly over as many sick children as possible. The older kids are
cared for by the nurse who arrives with each delegation, both in the hospital
and during recovery. “It’s amazing how quickly they settle down,” Kafif
reassures.
Israel at its Best
The organization’s main
offices are also located at the house. Here, British-born Executive Director
Simon Fisher explains the heart of SACH’s mission.
“I believe Save a
Child’s Heart represents Israel at its best,” he says. “At the core of the
activities are universal values that are at least part of my DNA as a Jew, as
an Israeli and as someone who immigrated from the UK to Israel and feels the
need to showcase who we are.”
“If there’s a child we
can help, then we’ll help,” he says of the different populations that the
apolitical organization treats, noting that nationality does not make a
difference. This is particularly true in the case of Palestinian kids, who have
a special weekly clinic at SACH.
“It makes sense to help
your neighbors,” he says. “We believe there’s a very strong element of
trust-building between Israelis and Palestinians and that’s through health.”
“Even at the worst of
times children have been coming across for treatment,” he adds.
The aid to children from
around the world is never at the expense of local Israeli kids, Fisher notes.
In fact, a new children’s medical center being built at Wolfson through the
efforts of SACH will treat all pediatric patients from the greater Holon area.
Sponsored by donors
Sylvan Adams, Morris Kahn, the Azrieli Foundation and the Ted Arison Family
Foundation, the children’s hospital is set to treat some 700 SACH patients a
year. And with the cost of flying over and treating each child standing at
$15,000, the initiative requires around $10 million.
While the organization
is non-governmental, it does receive support from the Israeli Ministry for
Regional Cooperation and at times the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as
the European Union and other private donors. Fatma’s operation, for example,
was sponsored by Canadian donors.
“As a member of the
international community, Israel is giving to humanity, per se, and in many
cases leading and leading by example,” Fisher says of SACH. “It’s very much
based on the values of tikkun olam,” he adds, concluding that “children are our
future.”
That’s certainly the
case for Fatma.
“I’ll make sure to take
good care of my child,” Haji says. “I want her to be a doctor – a heart
specialist. That was my dream and I didn’t get the chance to go. I want to make
sure she goes.”
