Surgeons of Hope Delivers Life Saving Cardiac Surgeries for Haitian Children

NEW YORK, April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Two Haitian boys and their families got a new lease on life following successful cardiac surgeries provided by Surgeons of Hope, a medical mission foundation headed by Dr. Francois Lacour-Gayet, head of Pediatric Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at Montefiore Children's Hospital who performed the life-saving surgeries in March, 2011.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110405/NY77306 )

As part of a global health development initiative, Surgeons of Hope has conducted pediatric surgeries and training in some of the most challenging places on earth – like Afghanistan, Senegal and Nicaragua – and is now tackling Haiti with plans to train doctors, nurses and technicians in cardiac surgery and specifically in pediatric cardiac surgery by creating the first heart center in Haiti.

The need is great: for the impoverished children of Haiti, a heart defect is a death sentence.  With no hospitals, equipment or doctors to perform cardiac and other complex pediatric surgeries, the fates of a generation hang in the balance.  Kensley and Robens live in two different areas on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince each with no electricity, running water, sewage systems or paved roads.  With the partnership of Montefiore Children's Hospital, Chaine de l'Espoir Foundation, Gift of Life Foundation and Ronald McDonald House, Surgeons of Hope was able to bring these two boys and their mothers to New York City for operations that have given them back their lives.  But this is only two of many.

There are 1000 children in Haiti who need these kinds of surgeries – and the children who get them are the lucky beneficiaries of chance.  By establishing a cardiac facility in Haiti and training local surgeons and surgical teams, Surgeons of Hope envisions that one day all people needing cardiac surgery in Haiti can be treated.  Surgeons of Hope will take its first medical mission to Haiti in May, where it will perform cardiac surgery in a small surgical unit it has recently established in partnership with Chaine de L'Espoir in Port-au-Prince.

"Poor children must not die when we have the skills and technology to save them," says Dr. Lacour-Gayet, "As our motto says, it's not what we bring, but what we leave behind."

To learn more about Surgeons of Hope's initiative in Haiti please go to www.surgeonsofhope.org

or

Contact Jean-Claude Kaufmann, 212-662-0193

[email protected]

Surgeons of Hope Foundation, Inc. is a Registered 501© Tax-Exempt Non-Profit Organization.

SOURCE Surgeons of Hope