An Israeli Organization That's All Heart

by David Gerstman

In many areas of technology and medicine, Israel is among the most advanced countries in the world. Israel also reaches out to help many countries that are less developed. Those efforts are rarely cited in the media.

An exception to this rule was the report last year that a young Iraqi girl had had lifesaving surgery in Israel. Bayan Jassem was diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart defect in November, 2003. An American physician who examined her made contact with the organization Save A Child's Heart, in Israel. Because of the seriousness of her condition, arrangements were quickly made to transport her and her family to Israel.

While the operation was initially a success, apparently Bayan's medical problems were too severe, and she died a few weeks after the operation. Still, Simon Fisher, executive director of Save A Child's Heart, said that two more Iraqi children have been accepted into the program and been treated. Since its inception, in 1996, over 3,000 children have been examined by Save A Child's Heart. Of those, over 900 have been treated.

Save A Child's Heart was started by Dr. Amram (Ami) Cohen, a Maryland-born cardiologist. Before he made aliya, Dr. Cohen had been a surgeon with the U.S. Army. During his time in Korea, he was approached by an international organization, Save The Hearts, that attempted to arrange for poor Korean children to be treated in Western countries. Dr. Cohen was very impressed and got permission to care for some of the children himself. He performed 35 surgeries as part of this program.

When Dr. Cohen and his family made aliya, in 1992, he practiced at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. In 1995, he received a call from a doctor in Ethiopia who knew of two children with severe heart defects that required immediate treatment. Drawing on his previous experience in treating the Korean children, Dr. Cohen obtained permission from his superiors, and the two children were flown to Israel, where he performed the necessary surgery. When the children and their families returned to Ethiopia, the word of the operations’ success spread, and the number of requests for treatment increased greatly.

Once the program started, a colleague of Dr. Cohen's, from Moldova, mentioned that he was aware of children from Moldova who needed treatment for heart defects. A team from Save A Child's Heart then traveled to Moldova. Soon, Save A Child’s Heart was receiving requests from all over the world.

A chart at the Save A Child's Heart website shows where the organization does most of its work. Roughly one third of the children treated are from the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, due to the political situation, the organization’s doctors are not allowed to contact local doctors within the PA to inform them about subsequent care. Nor has the organization been allowed to train Palestinian doctors to do the surgeries themselves.

In fact, according to Mr. Fisher, one of the goals of the organization is to teach doctors and hospitals in developing countries to handle the delicate surgery of operating on children's hearts. In this area, Save A Child’s Heart has had the greatest success in China. At least 70 Chinese children have been treated as part of the program. The vast majority of these are treated in China. That is because China has relatively advanced medical facilities, and its doctors are thus able to perform the advanced techniques taught by Save A Child's Heart.

Unfortunately in 2001, Dr. Cohen died of a heart attack. Yet the program he started survived him. Currently, Save A Child's Heart treats about 250 children a year at a cost of $10,000 per child. While that adds up to $2.5 million a year, the goal of the organization is to raise a $40 million endowment, so that it will be able to fund itself on the interest generated by the endowment.

Dr. Cohen saw his work as a way of bridging the differences across cultures. In an article in Parade Magazine, Dr. Cohen said, “Everybody is the same the world over. All the parents want is a healthy kid.”

Hopefully, more people will become aware of the wonderful work Dr. Cohen did and that his organization continues to do.