CHINA: Children brought back to normal life by free heart surgery

In the Northern Chinese town of Shijiazhuang, in Hebei province, children suffering from heart disease are given hope of complete recovery as doctors from an Israeli charity bring their knowledge and state of the art technology to save them. In the waiting room of Hebei's Children hospital, these children, aged from 6 month to 18 years and their parents are full of hope. Heart conditions, which some have been struggling with for years, may soon only remain as a bad memory and new lives will begin. In China, hearth surgery techniques remain limited, and often too expensive for modest families like these. According to one source, one fifth of families with children suffering from cardiac disease can not afford to pay for any surgery, even when available. An Israeli charity, Save a Child's Heart (SACH), which started 7 years ago, has stepped in to rescue those affected children, giving them a new chance in life and giving local medical teams proper training in the domain of heart surgery. Wang Tao, 17-year old, is one of the eldest patients this year, she has been been suffering from heart disease since she was 1 year old. "She has a very severe stenosis of the valve which is going to the pulmonary artery to the lungs. Look at her lips, the colour of her lips. You can see that she has problem with the oxygenation of her blood. If the procedure would be succeed, we will be very happy, the whole group. That's the meaning of coming here, of travelling so far away, in order to do something which is special, which is the Chinese colleagues don't have the experience with it. So we hope," Dutch Doctor Liveya Kaposta said while holding Wang's hands. Even though Wang Tao was in such a worrying state, she was several times rejected from local hospitals who were unable the provide treatment. She also saw her application rejected by the SACH team previously, because the right tools were missing. But this year, Hebei hospital has purchased a new catheterization lab, exactly what Wang Tao needed. So after 16 years of suffering, she could be scheduled for life changing surgery. Cardiac catheterization, which is performed by inserting a catheter into a chamber of vessel of the heart, is a complex surgery which takes several hours. The international charity medical team is assisted by Chinese surgeons and nurses on training. These operations will give the local trainees and doctors a chance to learn about the right gestures and their brand new lab. "We are very happy because the saturation of the blood went up, from 72 to 99, which means the procedure succeeds," Dutch Doctor Liveya Kaposta said After the operation, Wang Tao's skin turned to a normal colour and her mother was delighted. "She was diagnosed suffer from a severe congenial of heart disease. And by the time we view the echo, she was already sent home and we knew that she was denied of surgery. So we called her back and did the surgery. And now she is as pink as everybody else. This is something you can not forget," SACH lead surgeon, Doctor Lior Sasson said. Wang Tao was still tired from surgery, but that didn't stop her and her mother from being grateful. "Tell them that you are very grateful that they gave you a second life," says her mother "I'm very grateful," replied Wang Tao. For the head of Heidei Children Hospital, Doctor Li Jiang, the training aspect of this mission is equally important than the rescued lives. "The most important point is to directly give us technical support because Israeli experts go to Hebei Children Hospital by themselves, do joint-surgeries with local doctors, promote medical techniques and development with jointed efforts," said Li Jiang, head of Hebei Children Hospital. Wang Tao is one of many examples. From October 25 to November first this year, the 22 strong team of Dutch and Israeli surgeons and cardiologists conducted heart surgeries on eleven children. It was the organization's seventh medical mission to China during the past nine years. During these missions nearly 100 Chinese children suffering from heart defects underwent open-heart surgery. The Foundation has treated more than 1,500 children with heart surgeries and trained medical personnel in 26 countries since 1995.

ITN Source | November 17, 2006

Tags:. .eleven. .afford. .lab. .jointed. .province