chernobyl: the life saving gift at work

I can't look at this picture without imagining how I might feel to see my own child in an intensive care unit, hooked up to tubes and wires and hissing electronic equipment.  Only days ago, this child's parents were in the situation all parents dread:  Not knowing if their child would live or die.  Today she lives, thanks to a partnership between American and Belarusian surgeons and a life saving gift.

In October, I wrote about the Portland grandmother and the unusual way she raised funds to help kids needing heart surgery in Belarus. We combined her donation with one from a Rotary Club to purchase a Somanetics Cardiac Oximeter.  The oximeter just arrived in Belarus with a volunteer surgical team.  (The device allows surgeons to non invasively monitor oxygen levels in a young patient's brain and kidneys while they are on bypass during surgery. If the heart fails, the surgical team can intervene before irreparable damage is done.)

This equipment will save the lives of as many as 175 children a year.  We thought you might like to see this photo of the first one.  Pictured here,  Dmitry Leskovsky MD  (of the  National  Children's Cardiac Center in Minsk) and William Novick MD performed what is called a "Stage 1 Norwood" on the child.  The operation is one of the more complex performed in the USA or Europe.

As I reported last week, our cardiac surgery program has saved the lives of close to 300 children in Belarus, and has provided training and equipment that reduced the waiting list for children's heart surgeries from 7000 to 2400 under 5 years.  This spring, we will bring the program to Ukraine, where 50% of children who need complicated heart surgeries do not get it.

But today, we are celebrating the life of this one child.

Comments

[Perfusionist]

"INVOS" is good device for Belarus. For example in Ukraine (4500 children with congenital heart defects annually) we have no this device in cardiac surgery.