Heart2Heart-Children with Congenital Heart Defects

My Dear Donors, 

First I would like to thank you all for your generous contrbutions to help poor children with congenital heart defects. 

I would like to thank all medical staff who are volunteering their time and expertise to help children with heart conditions in remote areas of Egypt like Upper Egypt (Sohag and Assiut and Beni Suef).

Unfortunately economic status in Egypt is getting worse and worse first hit by the Covid pandemic for two years followed by the Ukraine disaster. The Egyptian pound has been further devaluated by 25% so that people are getting poorer and poorer. Almost 30% of the poplulation earn less than one USD a day according the World Bank reports on Egypt. 

The funds from yourselves are helping those poor children as the government can not cope with the needs. Help from NGO and society members is mandatory. GlobalGiving donations are added to  Heart to Heart project Global Grant funds from Rotary International and Rotary clubs reaching 92.8K USD. We aim to treat 33-36 patients with these funds with average cost around 2600-2800 USD per patient. 

We have operated so far on 11 patients in Sohag 600 km south of Cairo and 6 patients in Beni Suef 150 Km south of Cairo. These two Governorates are considered the poorest in Egypt. We have also operated on 5 cases in Alexandria 300 Km north of Cairo (Total 22 cases so far). We aim also to train local doctors, nurses and technicians TO ENSURE SUSTAINABILITY.  We did noninvasive catheter procedures succssfully to close holes in the heart and small congenital vessels, stent narroww arteries or veins and balloon dilate valves that are stenotic.  The consumables eg (devices, balloons stents ... etc) are extremely expensive and consume 80% of the budget allocated to each patient averaging 2200 USD per device. The rest is paid to the hospital as fees. All doctors are volunteers. The advantages of such state of the art technique is that patients go home the next day completely cured. No added risk of ICU stay, or blood transfusions and no disfiguering scars. 

I would like to attach all the patients data however this is against GlobalGiving reporting policy despite having all relevant consents. Those of you who wish nore information on the patients please email me: elsisi96@yahoo.com

We had a very succesful visit last March by a team of health professionals from the UK, US and Austria to our Cardiology department. They have seen the huge crowds of sick children waiting for interventions.  We organized a fund raising dinner event and raised more donations amounting to 14K USD we started work in Assiut which is 400 Km south of Cairo and we treated 6 children with congenital heart defects.   

I hope the year 2022 brings more donations and more happiness to children with heart defects and their families. The Governement of Egypt is still incapable of funding all the operations needed.  

Please continue to donate, your donations are mandatory. 

Yours 

Dr Amal El-Sisi 

Prof of Pediatric Cardiology Cairo University