The first-ever training mission of our joint-effort to develop a sustainable pediatric cardiac program at Grigore Alexandrescu Hospital (GAH) in Bucharest, Romania is now complete.
A team from Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York provided care to 8 Romanian children while training the Romanian pediatric cardiac team. They were joined by Dr. Rodrigo Soto, a pediatric cardiac surgeon from another partner, ICHF.
This effort was financed by Rotary Global Grant 1634083 supported generously by several Rotary Clubs and Districts in Romania, California, Israel, the United States and elsewhere. As well as Gift of Life programs throughout the USA…26 separate entities in total donated to this Grant!
There are many parties involved in this very ambitious project to create a pediatric cardiac surgery and catheterization program at GAH.
Our training team partners are ICHF from Memphis, Tennessee, SACH from Tel Aviv, Israel and Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York….Gift of Life International put together this consortium, wrote the grant and worked to coordinate the funding for the grant, raising nearly $300,000 to: (1) conduct 3 training visits to GAH which will treat 40 children and provide training to the local Romanian team AND (2) send an additional 10 children to Israel for more complex surgeries.
We are proud to work in partnership with these organizations and with you to bring care to Romanian children who otherwise would not be treated….and to build a program that will ultimately be sustained and managed by Romanians….
Last week in Bucharest 8 children with heart problems were successfully operated.
This Global Grant will fund two more training visits: ICHF in January 2017 and SACH in February 2017
Please see the below photos of the first child operated with his mother, the US and Romanian medical teams, more of our precious children that were helped and the team at work.
Having the Romanian team fully trained and operational will take several years and more expert training teams to travel to Romania which means we need to continue our support of this program in the future.
This is truly a project that makes the difference for those children between life and death.
Here are some photos from the hospital:
