How Save a Child's Heart provides lifesaving cardiac care to children

• Published date: 27 September 2021
• Author: ROSSELLA TERCATIN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Among the children was one-year-old Leul from Ethiopia, dressed in some slightly big light blue pajamas, smiling and crawling happily from his mother to other people, sometimes attempting to stand up. Another child, two-year-old Tevin from Uganda, also walked around the playing area covered in synthetic grass and scattered with toys.

Leul and Tevin are among the current residents of the Legacy Heritage Children's Home run by Save a Child's Heart (SACH), an NGO whose mission is to provide lifesaving cardiac care to children who do not have access to the necessary treatment in their home countries, as well as to offer training to local healthcare staff.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

>

The first seed of Save a Child's Heart was planted in 1995 when Dr. Amram (Ami) Cohen, a new immigrant from the US who was serving as the head of pediatric heart surgery at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, was contacted by a colleague in Ethiopia who asked him if he could do anything to save the lives of two children in urgent need of heart surgery.

"There are many people who, when presented with a challenge, easily find many reasons to say no, but he was the kind of person who focused on finding the way to say yes," Tamar Shapira, the organization's deputy executive director, told The Jerusalem Post.

The children were brought to Israel and operated upon. More started to follow.

"At that time, we used to host children in our homes," said Nava Gershon, head nurse of the pediatric surgical ward at the Sylvan Adams Children's Hospital at Wolfson, who has been involved in SACH from its beginning.

"I remember that one day I showed up at home with two patients, announcing to my husband that we would host them for a certain period, in addition to our own children," she added.

As the organization celebrates its 25th anniversary, SACH is proud to have performed some 6,000 surgeries on children from over 60 countries, with about half of the little patients coming from the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, and another 40% from African nations.

"Our current group includes children from Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Zanzibar, Somaliland and Gambia," Laura Kafif said.

Kafif serves in the position of head mother at the Children's Home, making sure that everything runs smoothly and that the children and those who accompany them have what they need.

The home opened in 2011 to accommodate patients from overseas as they wait for surgery and after they are discharged from the hospital but are...