What would you do if your child was one of the 1 in 100 children born with a heart defect? Parents are willing to move heaven and earth to save their child’s life, but often, their options and finances are limited.
Sadly, routine surgical procedures freely available in the developed world are out of reach in almost every African country. With your generosity, we can change this by providing 100 vulnerable African children with free heart surgery in 2019.
Challenge
Children with normally curable illnesses must not die due to their geographical and economic situation. For around 335,000 babies in Africa each year, being born with a heart defect is a death sentence as treatment is simply unavailable to them.
Solution
The Children’s Cardiac Foundation of Africa is on a mission to help by providing high quality surgical care to these children. By working with partner hospitals and other sponsors, we are able to treat these children on an elective basis, transport them over long distances (if needed), and the heart disease is likely resolved, at least for several years or even decades, with one operation or intervention.
Long-Term Impact
In addition to providing surgery, we also train doctors and nurses in the field of paediatric cardiac care, building much needed surgical competence throughout Africa.
In time, and through collaboration, we expect every African country to establish and run their own cardiac programs. This will save many more young children in the years to come.
Be A Heart Hero! Donate today!
Zahara’s Story (main picture and video link below)
Zahara is the Foundation’s first beneficiary from outside South Africa to receive open heart surgery. The 7-year-old from Accra, Ghana, recently took her first airplane ride to Durban, South Africa, where she was treated for severe mitral valve regurgitation, a condition in which her heart's mitral valve didn't close tightly, allowing blood to flow backward into her heart. A team of over 10 volunteer surgeons, paediatric and cardiac doctors, perfusionists, anaesthetists, nurses as well as other support staff worked together to perform her life-saving surgery, more than 3 years after her initial diagnosis. Today, almost 3 months after her surgery, Zahara is back at school in Ghana - a healthy little girl, ready to face her future with excitement. Watch her story here https://youtu.be/pFpoS8N5ddc
Visit www.tccfa.org for more information.
