By Rachel Avraham
Save A Child’s Heart is an Israeli humanitarian organization, who assists children in developing countries who need heart surgery. Tamar Shapiro, who does public relations for Save a Child’s Heart, added: “This year was a special year in many aspects. We marked 25 years of bringing children from developing countries for heart surgery, who don’t have the ability to perform such surgeries in their home country. We also marked the 6,000th child that we saved. He was a child, who came from Gaza with a very complicated heart defect. He was operated on here. Today, he is now living his life, like any child with a normal heart.”
According to Shapiro, “50% of the children that we treat are Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza. 45% are from different African countries and the rest are from all around the world. We brought children here from 63 different countries. Despite the COVID restrictions, we have been able to continue our work and to bring children to Israel for life-saving heart surgery.”
In an exclusive interview with Israel Today, Professor Arie Schachner, President of Save A Child’s Heart, stated that he founded his organization together with Yoram Cohen and the rest of his team out of the belief that “a child is a child. It does not matter what is his color, his religion and socio-economic condition. All that matters is that is a future citizen of the world,” who needs assistance.
Professor Schachner understands better than anyone that many bad things happen across the world: “I am a survivor of the Holocaust. I was six months old when the war the started.” He claimed that he and his mother very much suffered from that genocide: “I was born in Poland and was there before, during and after the war. After the war, we were crammed into a tiny room with three other families, whose living area was separated by blankets. We were all survivors, who shared everything, as we had no money.”
According to Professor Schachner, “Then, we decided to go to Israel. I arrived in Israel in 1949. That is my story. So, I decided to become a doctor because you can only conquer evil by good things. There is no other antidote to evil.” Yoram Cohen, whose family goes back three generations in Jerusalem, decided to join as a co-founder of Save A Child’s Heart as he sought to give back to the community: “I feel enriched with this work. To save a life is sacred work.”
However, according to their website, they are not only helping children obtain heart surgeries but also training doctors from developing countries, including Palestinian doctors: “The ultimate goal of SACH is to create centers of medical competence in developing countries so that children can be treated independently in their own communities. Our training problems help drive this goal.”
As Maimonides once said, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Thus, by teaching doctors from the Palestinian Authority how to perform their own life-saving heart surgeries, Save A Child’s Heart is teaching Palestinian doctors how to fish.
When asked about the training that they provide to Palestinian doctors, Professor Schachner stressed: “Since we say that a child is a child and if we don’t care for the people, then we have nothing to offer in the world,” he views it to be only natural that they assist doctors from developing countries, including Palestinian doctors. “We don’t look down on developing countries. We consider them equal partners. We not only want to save their lives. We are not only dreamers but visioners.” Cohen added: “We are following our dreams too.”
Professor Schachner added that some of the Palestinian doctors who are part of their team speak openly about it and are proud of it: “Some of them are going to a hospital in Jerusalem to get open heart surgery. Some of them are cardiologists trained by us. He is now the main cardiologist in the Palestinian Authority. We have a working team that is really devoting time to this. The Palestinians are our neighbors and our cousins. We must show them all our sides. We are teaching them. They speak Hebrew. They write Hebrew. I was teaching Gazan doctors who came to my place, and I taught them everything I know.”
Dr. Enas Jamal Kabar, a Palestinian female doctor from Gaza, is one of the Palestinian doctors trained by Save A Child’s Heart. She stated in an interview with Israel Today: “When I complete my training here and go back to Gaza, it will help to improve the medical services there, both for adults and kids. We suffer from a lack of manpower and tools. We only have a few hospitals in all the Gaza Strip. Three or four hospitals only.”
According to Dr. Kabar, “The main hospital is Shifa. My training was in Shifa. In Shifa, we only have four or five operation rooms. You cannot imagine how bad the situation is there. During war, we had injured people staying outside and only allowed the most severely injured into the operation room. As a result of telling injured people to wait and wait, they lost their limbs. The situation is horrible.”
She concluded: “I hope to make a change there. I believe it is we who can make the difference, even if presently we don’t have equipment. Maybe by the time I finish my training, something will change, and we will be able to bring the equipment to Gaza. Or maybe I will be the one to bring the equipment there. Sometimes, one with knowledge and training can make a change and bring equipment.”
“So, maybe we can get equipment one day,” she concluded. “I know that Gaza is a poor area,” but she stressed that in the past with the help of Cavitas, an organization supported by the church and Ireland, she was able to succeed to get equipment for ultra-sound over there, so change in possible: “We have to believe in ourselves that we can make a change for the poor people among us.”
Dr. Mervat Al Faraha, a Palestinian doctor from Ramallah, is also getting trained by Save A Child’s Heart. She noted in an interview with Israel Today that Save A Child’s Heart has been very friendly to her: “I feel appreciated with everything. They really appreciate you if you really want to train and to improve all the time.”
She noted that the hospitals in Ramallah and other areas of the West Bank are better than they are in Gaza, but not qualified like in Israel: “They are very limited and small hospitals. There is only a central hospital for each city and a few private hospitals.” She also wants to take here skills and to improve the medical facilities in the West Bank: “I really want to improve the situation for Palestinian doctors.”
