On a recent trip to Israel, my close friend Ron Finkel and I had the privilege of visiting Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) at its center in Holon and the intensive care unit at Wolfson Hospital where the children who receive life saving heart surgery recover following their surgery.
Ron and I met with the Simon Fisher, the Executive Director of SACH at the specially built house where the patients live pre and post surgery with their caregivers. We were meeting with Simon to discuss Project Rozana (a project founded by Ron to support the training of Palestinian doctors in Israel and provide financial support for the treatment of Palestinian pediatric patients at Hadassah Hospital). Our purpose was to discuss the potential of collaboration with SACH. We also attended a meeting of Palestinian doctors who were participating in a seminar organized for them by SACH.
SACH is a remarkable organization that as indicated on its website: “Every day a child from a developing country is saved in the pediatric cardiac surgical unit at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, where the Save a Child’s Heart medical facilities are based. Thousands of children from developing countries are alive today because of a small group of medical professionals who volunteer their time and expertise to perform cardiac surgery and train medical personnel.” SACH was founded by Dr. Amram (Ami) Cohen in 1995, a visionary doctor who knew and understood the power of the medical world to make a difference in the lives of children and establish bridges for connecting communities.
SACH is blind when it comes to deciding whom to treat. Each child is brought to Wolfson based on their particular cardiac problem and the assessment of the treatment that can be provided. Children from all the third world and Middle East countries are brought to SACH.
The day Ron and I visited the ICU at Wolfson we saw four children next to each other: one from Syria, one from Iraq, one from the Palestinian Authority and an Israeli. In one small confined ICU, children from countries in conflict were receiving the same degree of medical support and care. It was an unbelievable experience. In the waiting room, the Iraqi child’s mother was waiting nervously (with other family members) for news from the doctor that her son would be ok.
SACH and Wolfson Hospital together are saving lives and helping to establish strong and meaningful relationships with health care workers from Israel and other countries. These relationships create confidence and friendship and establish a base that we hope will, in turn, influence those responsible to move towards finding the peace that has eluded Israel and its neighbors.
