A fully equipped Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) medical team travels to its partner sites around the world, in order to teach and perform life-saving heart surgery. They are able to travel to countries whose medical infrastructure can support the necessary surgical conditions. During the missions the medical team will work alongside local personnel, whom in many cases have already been trained in Israel, operating on children and sharing knowledge in the various related fields such as: cardiology, cardiac surgery, intensive care, anesthesia, perfusion and nursing.
As part of the onsite training SACH teams provides lectures in all the related fields of pediatric cardiac care as well as courses such as the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course.
During the SACH teaching and surgery missions abroad, the Israeli teams are periodically joined by partner organizations such as Children's Heart Link and the Gift of Life from the U.S.A., and physicians from partner hospitals, such as Dr. Giancarlo Crupi and his team from the Riuniti Hospital di Bergamo in Italy, Dr. Livia Kapusta from UMC St Radboud, in Nijmegen Holland and Dr. Tom Pezzela of the World Heart Foundation.
To date, 14 teaching missions have taken place in Ethiopia, China, Mauritania, Moldova and Ukraine, and have resulted in the treatment of more than 170 children and the onsite training of hundreds of medical personnel worldwide.