International Children's Heart Foundation

Where Hope Comes to Life

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Archives for November 2012

November 29, 2012

A Sensible Sort of Hope

Mohammed, seen here giving the thumbs up.

It is always interesting to reckon what a child is thinking, but when the child has been born into a world utterly incomprehensible to the American child, the exercise gets really interesting.

As he is being transferred from the bed to the operating table, Mohammed is looking stoic and brave and very much a child who wants to make his father proud. I can only imagine that he does. But Mohammed, at eight years old, lived through a brutal civil war at about the same age that I was contemplating a career as Spiderman.

Libya is a country where hope is still so fragile that isn’t really given to flights of fancy. The parents know it, and as is always the case, the children know it too even if they can’t say why. But there is hope: the war is over now. For Mohammed, however, a danger lurks that is not from above but from inside. The boy has a hole in his heart.

His hopes, and those of his parents, are pinned on an Iranian-born Swiss surgeon, Dr. Ali Dodge-Khatami. He is performing the ASD closure in an operating theater that is better equipped than I was expecting. The issue in Benghazi is not one of equipment but of education and training, and that is why the ICHF has come. The Libyans know this and have sent staff from Tripoli to take part in the training.

In situations like these, there is always a mild dose of culture shock: in the scrub room the Libyan anesthesiologist kneels on a small rug, making his 5:00 prayers. The bypass machine to be used for the procedure is maneuvered quietly around him and into the theater. Mohammed’s chart has his nutritional status listed as “Normal” but from across the room nearly every rib in his chest can be counted. And he is. An American who could once believe that he’d have spidey-senses can afford to get fat, but this is a different world.

What he thought, as he woke in the long quiet of the night shift, was “Is the surgery over yet?” Those were the first words he uttered to his mother and veteran ICHF volunteer Andrea Hiebert. It was over, and it was a success. He’d be sore, but was well. He went back to sleep.

What then, did the boy think when he awoke to the handover from night shift to day, drifting out of a groggy sleep to find a dozen doctors and nurses from around looking, smiling and chatting away in a incomprehensible babble? Were they discussing him? They are friendly faces, ones that – so his mother says – are telling him that he is well now, he will live and play soccer and, if the mood hits, can consider a career as a superhero as long as he has a sensible backup plan.

I took his picture, and with now prompting gave me a thumbs up. I think we understood each other. He walked out of the ICU a few hours later on his own. He has hope and a realistic one at that.

Richard Murff

Benghazi, Libya

Filed Under: congenital heart disease, Libya, News, Tripoli Tagged With: News

November 27, 2012

Babyheart Hits the Ground Running in Benghazi

Victoryia and May sorting things out.

Performing better than twenty heart surgeries in two weeks, producing rich world outcomes under emerging world conditions, the ICHF has never been an organization to waste a lot of time. This was vividly illustrated on November 26th, day one of the foundation’s second trip to Benghazi, Libya.

Dr. Kathleen Fenton, who has overseen Operation Babyheart in Managua, Nicaragua for the last five years, and Dr. Cameron Greydon of Australia both arrived in Benghazi a day ahead of the mission to assess patients. The rest of the mission was greeted with an ambitious schedule the first day: three procedures in two theaters, with herself and ICHF volunteer surgeon Dr. Ali Dodge Khatami from Switzerland to perform the two VSDs and a PDA.

Most of the team arrived in Benghazi at 8:30 am on Monday morning, but didn’t leave the airport when the donated medical supplies we were carrying were inexplicably impounded. This was as problematic as it sounds. Sorting through the donated supplies needs to be done before the first patient arrives in the PICU. After a lot of bad noise at the airport, the team arrived at the Benghazi Medical Center at two in the afternoon, roughly the same time the first patient, Asmaa, was coming out of the operating theater.

Janine Evans, the team coordinator for the Libya mission, called the charge and the nurses scrambled to change into their scrubs to care for little Asmaa – as well as sort the supplies and set up a modern ICU. The impounded bags arrived at the hospital about an hour later.

These sort of minor fiascos are simply part of the experience on a babyheart mission: pulling order out of chaos is what they do. Asmaa, thankfully, is a brave patient who appears to be able to face anything as long as her hair is in proper pigtails. A lady needs her hairdo, and who can blame her?

With two operating theaters going, at the end of the day shift two more patients arrived in a neatly ordered PICU. So day one ended the way a lot of babyheart missions do: from a morass of strange problems being hammer out in a foreign language to – somehow – a safe and ordered haven for recovering children.

Filed Under: Babyheart, congenital heart disease, ICHF, Libya, News Tagged With: News

November 21, 2012

Stephanie March of Law and Order, visits ICHF Babyheart Medical Mission in Kharkiv, Ukraine

During the week of November 10-17th, the International Children’s Heart Foundation program in Kharkiv, Ukraine received some very distinguished guests. US TV actress, Stephanie March of Law and Order fame, and a strong child health advocate, visited the Kharkiv Center of Cardiac Surgery, where ICHF volunteer medical missions average 5 trips a year, operating on 280 children in the past 4 years. She arrived with World of Children co-founders, Harry and Kay Leibowitz, who support Chernobyl Children International, represented by founder Adi Roche, who in turn, supports ICHF’s Babyheart medical missions to Kharkiv. As an actor, Stephanie makes a living pretending to be a lawyer on TV, although she is very aware of real world problems, such as congenital heart defects and is doing something to alleviate the issue. The Center’s director, Dr. Igor Polivenok and ICHF’s biomedical engineer, David Weiduwilt, took a day to provide a tour of the facility they worked so hard over the years to build.

One unique aspect of the Center is the observation dome directly above the operating room for visitors and students to obtain a rare bird’s eye view of a surgery. David and Igor took Stephanie and the group here first to view a surgery from the eyes of a surgeon. Then they guided them through rounds in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the newly renovated ward rooms. Kay became very emotional here while visiting with the children. She experienced firsthand the children’s helplessness as they fight and cling to life following such an arduous experience for their tiny bodies. Stephanie and Kay visited every bedside to spend time with the kids. They left many gifts here for the children and left the remainder in a newly renovated play room.  The gifts are a thankful diversion for children fighting through discomfort, pain and boredom as they recuperate. Then they shared lunch and Dr. Polivenok gave a presentation on the work of ICHF and its dedicated staff, illustrating the great sacrifices made by those who volunteer to provide medical care for patients and training for the local staffs. Afterwards Igor arranged for the visitors to enter the OR for a surgery and conduct a question and answer session to learn more about congenital heart defects. Sadly, many children here are affected by the “Chernobyl Heart,” from which the Oscar winning 2004 documentary featuring ICHF’s Founder and Medical Director, Dr. Novick, took its name. This is a condition of heart defects caused by the radiation fallout from the disastrous explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986. This event and the suffering it wrought upon the children inspired Adi Roche’s creation of Chernobyl Children International. The explosion happened 26 years ago, but much like the scar on a child’s chest from surgery, the effects are still being felt like a great scar across Ukraine’s landscape. The child’s scar will heal and go away, but we will never know if the radiation damage on these helpless children will ever go away. That is why this land is blessed by the medical teams of the International Children’s Heart Foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, David escorted the group to view the cath lab and then they viewed a video presentation. The representatives confirmed their continued support for this wonderful program and recognized the need to keep it going. Before finishing the day, the guests were able to see the transfer of a patient from the healing hands of the operating room ICHF staff to the caring hands of PICU ICHF staff. After some coffee, ICHF bid farewell to their special guests and they were on their planes back home to spread the word about the wonderful work being done around the globe.

The ICHF was delighted and honored to have World of Children representatives Stephanie March, and co-founders Harry and Kay Leibowitz, to travel so far to see firsthand the impact of their donations. The ICHF surgeons, doctors, perfusionists, and nurses all perform the work, day in and day out with one goal in mind: save kids’ lives who, without ICHF, would not have a fighting chance at life. While ICHF is very busy performing this great work, it is good, during this season of thanks, to give gratitude to the various caring organizations that offer monetary assistance to keep the teams on the planes, the operating rooms filled, the PICU staffed, and the new hearts beating, full of life, inside tiny chests.

Bryan Artiles

Filed Under: Babyheart, congenital heart defects, ICHF, Kharkiv, New York, News, Ukraine Tagged With: News

November 8, 2012

Surprised, Mad, Content

 

 

 

 

 

Surprised
Mad
Content

That is how little baby Rand Ahmed was with the latest ICHF Babyheart mission to Iraq. The beneficiary of International Children’s Heart Foundation’s unprecedented one year program, this precious little kid went through the full gamut of emotions: from surprised to mad to content. I think many parents of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) experience this same range of emotions. When a parent first discovers their child has a congenital heart defect they must feel surprised. They are in a state of shock as the elation of having a new baby in their world comes crashing down around them. They are surprised by this condition and the degree of complication of the defect which threatens to take the life of their new baby.

Then they feel mad at the world and wondering why this has happened to them, why there child cannot have a normal life and why their child will have to struggle day after day just to live. Frustration grows as they search for answers and who will be able to save their baby?

Then these feelings of surprise and anger subside to being content. Content with facing the condition and learning that there is an organization called International Children’s Heart Foundation that has the means and skill to save their baby. Being content gives way to new found happiness, almost equal to the happiness they felt when they first welcomed the baby into the world, when the ICHF Babyheart mission team has surgically repaired the heart and nursed the child back to full recovery, ready to leave the hospital and go home. This little one, Rand, was the 8th arterial switch in the history of pediatric heart surgery in Iraq, performed by none other than Dr. William Novick.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: News

Free Child Heart Surgeries

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Mission Statement

The mission of the International Children’s Heart Foundation (ICHF) is to bring the skills, technology and knowledge to cure and care for children with congenital heart disease in developing nations.  ICHF does this regardless of country of origin, race, religion or gender. Our goal is to make the need for ICHF obsolete. We work toward this goal through our medical mission trips, where we operate on children and educate local healthcare professionals.

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