Just after midnight on October 27, 2006, the medical team of Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) arrived in Shijiazhuang, China, for the seventh time, to begin a ten day intensive medical collaboration with the Hebei Provincial Children's Hospital.
The SACH medical team was led by the Director of the Cardiothoracic Department and Chief Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgeon, Dr. Lior Sasson, and included Chief Pediatric Cardiologist, Dr. Akiva Tamir, Dr. Ilan Cohen, Deputy Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Drs. Simon Yakobashvilli and Alexander Sherman, Anesthesiologists, Anat Mastor and Tomer Darshan, Heart Lung Machine Technicians, Olga Gur and Svetlana, Operating Room Nurses, Maureen Benita, Catheterization Nurse, Irena Nosel, Chief Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Nurse and Revital Cohen, Deputy Chief Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Nurse, all from the Wolfson Medical Center.
Dr. Liviu Manuk, a Pediatric Surgeon from Moldova, who is currently training with the SACH team at the Wolfson Medical Center also joined together with Simon Fisher, SACH’s Executive Director and SACH long-time volunteers and board members, Debra Silver and Sheila Shalhevet, who both photographed the mission from every angle and had the joy of entertaining the little patients and their parents with bubbles, balloons and endless smiles. Yoram Benita, in coordination with the Israeli Foreign Ministry videoed and interviewed both the Israeli and Chinese team.
The SACH medical team were joined by Dr. Livia Kupusta, Pediatric Cardiologist and Mr. Bob Rijk, Senior Echo Technician, of the Children's Heart Center in Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, in the Netherlands, Dr. Avraham Matityahu, Chief Pediatric Cardiologist at the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, Israel and Dr. Yoram Ben Yehuda, a Pediatric Emergency Medicine specialist from Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel.
The SACH team, which arrived after midnight, was already in the hospital by 8 A.M. the next morning meeting with the Director of Hebei Children's Hospital, Dr. Li Jiang and Director of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery, Dr. Jianming Wang.
Immediately after the meeting, the group divided into teams to begin evaluating the children for medical procedures. By the end of the first day one surgery had already been completed, numerous Echocardiograms done and lists set up for surgery and catheterizations for the following day, when the new Catheterization lab was inaugurated.
On Sunday and Monday October 29 and 30, a PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) hands on training course, taught by Drs. Yoram Ben Yehuda and Ilan Cohen and Nurse Irena Nosel, was held for over 100 participants from the hospital and around the province.
By the end of the mission the team had completed eleven surgeries, ten catheterizations and dozens of Echo Examinations. To our delight four children who had been previously operated on either in Israel or in China by the SACH team in the past came for checkups, hugs and the assurance that all was well.
A number of children are also being evaluated who will be brought to Israel and the Netherlands in the near future for surgery and follow-up care.
There are not enough words to thank the staff of Hebei Provincial Children's Hospital for their cooperation, kindness and help. It was an exhausting week yet no one gave up a minute of the experience to go to bed early or to take a nap. The SACH family grew closer than ever. The smiles of the children and their parents will stay with the participants forever.