Four children out of 20 from Malawi, Africa, to be operated free of cost for congenital heart disease under the Rotary Club of Chandigarh’s Heartline project, arrived here in the city.
The offer to provide free heart surgeries for twenty children from Malawi was made in April this year, when a team of voluntary doctors from the region led by former world president of Rotary International Rajendra K. Saboo and the then district governor Madhukar Malhotra had gone to Malawi and Zambia on a medical mission and treated patients there.
The four children who arrived from Malawi along with their guardians included a two years old boy Brain Milanzi, suffering from atral septal defect (ASD), two six years old boys Hasting Maloya, and Patience Nkhoma, both suffering from ventral septal defect (VSD), and a 14 years old girl Prisca Patrick with Patent Ductus Arterisum diagnosis.
Rajendra K Saboo informed that all these children would be operated at one of the partner hospitals of Rotary Heartline project, Fortis Hospital Mohali, and are being admitted in the evening there.
He further stated that 10 doctors from Malawi would be sent by the Government of Malawi’s health department, for advanced short term training in India which will be facilitated by Rotary.
Rajendra K. Saboo who had been instrumental in starting the project of Rotary Heartline, earlier known as Gift of Life, under which Rotary Club of Chandigarh had been providing free heart surgeries to children suffering from congenital cardiac diseases since 1999.
So far 365 lives of children have been saved, he informed briefing the media here today, and whenever there is a deserving case in and around Chandigarh, Rotary has always taken up such cases. The idea of taking up cases from other countries is to also serve beyond borders and live the eternal saying "Vasudevya Kutumbhkam" i.e. World is one family. Thus in the total surgeries done so far,there have been 2 children from Afghanistan, 6 from Nepal, 24 from Pakistan and 12 from Uganda over the years.
