Israeli medical NGO treats its 5,000th child from abroad

Israeli medical NGO treats its 5,000th child from abroad

Naama Barak


Save a Child’s Heart diagnoses, treats and operates on children with life-threatening heart diseases from developing countries, free of charge.

Balkis Makame Haji and her daughter Fatma arrive in Israel with Save a Child’s Heart. Photo by Gil Naor

One-year-old Fatma is crying in her hospital bed, and for good reason – she’s hungry. She hasn’t eaten since the evening before, in preparation for the open-heart surgery she’s going to be wheeled into any minute.

Her mother, Balkis, is trying to soothe her. Nineteen years ago, she herself was in a similar position, waiting at the very same hospital — Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel — for lifesaving surgery to repair a heart condition called patent ductus arteriosus.

But neither 26-year-old Balkis Makame Haji nor her daughter Fatma are Israeli. They traveled all the way from Zanzibar for the free surgery with the help of the Save a Child’s Heart non-profit organization.

Doctors operating on Fatma at the Wolfson Medical Center. Photo by Gil Naor

Fatma, her mom says, seemed fine at birth, even weighing a hefty seven pounds. “But when she was three months old, she started to have frequent fevers, coughs and pneumonia. We went to the hospital.”

An echocardiogram revealed that the three-month-old suffered from the same condition her mom did as a child. “A lot of children have this problem,” Haji explains. “It’s dangerous because they don’t grow properly.”

Balkis Makame Haji and her daughter Fatma at Israel’s Wolfson Medical Center. Photo by Gil Naor

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