By Leila Hawken | Fundraising Coordinator
This 6-month-old baby girl, as yet unnamed because of her fragile condition at birth, is from Somotillo, Nicaragua. Last May, she received the gift of life-saving, life-altering surgery to repair her little heart the size of a walnut. She suffered since birth with a congenital heart defect. Hearing about the new Pediatric Heart Center in Managua, built by Surgeons of Hope in 2013, her parents made the difficult trek from their village to the hospital. The little patients often endure the trip with their families on foot, bicycle, or if they have the fare, by bus.
Surgeons of Hope sends surgical training missions regularly to the Heart Center to ensure that training in the latest procedures is up to date and that the local team is equipped and ready to handle the unnamed babies and children who come through their doors. Since April, 15 children have received skilled surgical care from the local team, now fully confident in their treatment skills.
Surgeons of Hope continues in the belief that modern pediatric heart health, readily available in the developed world, should not bypass the children of our neighbors in Central and South America. This is the promise of our volunteer teams who bring sustainable progress in medicine. Surgeons of Hope is supporting the fulfillment of that promise.
We are pleased to report that in early August a volunteer surgical team (it takes a dozen or so medical specialists to perform an open-heart procedure on a child) will visit our Heart Center from the children’s hospital in Bogota. They will perform 10 surgeries while they are there, alongside the local team. The Colombian team has been there several times before; we appreciate their dedication.
As always, it is our GlobalGiving friends who join with us in fulfilling our promise. Our Heart Center needs four heart monitors that keep track of how the patient’s heart is behaving during and after surgery. For the visiting team to succeed, a maximum number of beds must be functional with the right equipment.
We cannot do it without you, as you can imagine. The small donations that come to us from you, add up to do a tremendous amount of good in our world. Please help.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
