At Save a Child’s Heart, our mission is simple - to provide life-saving procedures for children suffering from congenital and rheumatic heart disease who have little access to care in their own countries. For 25 years, our organization has brought over 5,900 children to Israel, from all corners of the world, to receive cutting edge medical treatment, free of charge.
Despite COVID-induced travel challenges, which have made connecting to our patients in the developing world more difficult, shutting down our operations was never an option. Our world class team of medical professionals understood that when dealing with children who require open-heart surgery or life-saving catheterization, each day is precious. Despite the increased challenges, we kept going.
Our patients and their families speak different languages, practice different faiths, and comprise different ethnicities. What unites them is that they are all benefiting from treatment from the Save a Child’s Heart team in Israel. Nearly half of the children we have treated are from the Middle East, including Gaza, Syria, and Iraq. Though their governments may be in open conflict with Israel, we treat these children with compassion, dignity and care. In this regard, not only do we save lives, but we also change the way Israel is seen in the region, one treatment at a time.
In recent years, Save a Child’s Heart has focused on scaling our efforts to ensure that more of the one per cent of all children born with a life-threatening heart condition can be hopeful about their future. The upcoming grand opening of the Sylvan Adams Children's Hospital in Holon will allow us to save even more lives. The hospital is a seven-floor state-of-the-art medical center that includes a pediatric intensive care unit; a three-room operating suite, consisting of a hybrid operating room that allows the medical team to perform open-heart surgery in parallel with catheterization, a heart institute, and two inpatients departments. Other public-spirited individuals and foundations who generously support the new hospital and the Save a Child's Heart activities are Morris Kahn, the Azrieli Foundation and the Ted Arison Family Foundation.
Aside from conducting operations in Israel, Save a Child’s Heart is able to further its global impact by sending our Israeli medical teams to partner sites in developing countries to perform surgeries and catheterizations, conduct cardiology clinics to evaluate children pre and post-surgery and provide on-site training to local medical personnel. By training local professionals, we are able to give them the tools to independently care for children and conduct sophisticated surgeries. These efforts improve the medical systems in developing countries and allow Israel to be involved in allow Israel to be involved in the establishment of lifesaving infrastructure that will save countless more lives for years to come. To date, Save a Child’s Heart has conducted teaching missions and trained medical personnel in Ethiopia, China, Mauritania, Moldova, Tanzania, Romania and Ukraine.
The doctors and nurses in our hospital aren’t diplomats or public relations gurus. But each and every day their work is changing the narrative about Israel and breaks down barriers. Through their efforts, patients and their families get to see just how remarkable Israel is.
Beyond the families who experience Israel in a positive light, Save a Child’s Heart is helping to change the global conversation about Israel. In 2018, Save a Child’s Heart was honored by the United Nations, receiving its annual Population Award. At an official ceremony attended by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as well other senior diplomats and international NGO leaders, Save a Child’s Heart was honored for upholding the UN Population Fund’s mandate to “deliver a world in which every young person’s potential is fulfilled.” We were the first Israeli organization to ever be given this honor by the UN.
In 2012 Save a Child’s Heart was presented with the Israeli Presidential Award for Volunteerism by the late President Shimon Peres. The award was given in recognition and gratitude of all the volunteers who dedicate a significant portion of their time and life to Save a Child’s Heart.
In all our discussions with patients, families and diplomats alike our message about Israel is simple. Israel values life above all else. Helping all types of people return to good health is at its heart a fundamentally Israeli value. One life at a time, one heart at a time.
The writer is the executive director of Save a Child’s Heart.