Save A Child’s Heart
This month, the Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) reached a new milestone- by performing their 6,000th life-saving procedure on an 11-year-old Gazan boy.
By the age of one month, doctors already knew that Mazen would need multiple surgeries to correct his congenital heart condition, the first of which he underwent at 2 months old in Jerusalem.
He was referred to SACH by two partner cardiologists at European Gaza Hospital who are responsible for screening all southern-Gazan paediatric cardiac patients and referring them to SACH. Each month they see about two to three critical cases which need emergency intervention. Once in Israel, Mazen was treated at the new Save a Child’s Heart International Paediatric Cardiac Centre and Sylvan Adams Children’s Hospital.
Once the surgery took place, Mazen, like all other children treated in Israel by SACH, spent time at the Children’s Home of Israel where he was able to fully heal and recover alongside other children, families, and volunteers from around the world.
Since 1995, Save a Child’s Heart has treated critically ill children “regardless of race, religion, gender, nationality or financial status”, who suffer from heart disease in countries where access to paediatric heart care is limited or non-existent. 50% of SACH’s patients are Palestinian, and for over 20 years SACH has run a weekly clinic for Palestinian children, and trained Palestinian medical professionals.
