Care beyond borders: 8 kids get new lease of life

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 20 

Seven children from Malawi, Africa, and one from Afghanistan have returned home after getting a new lease of life here.  

Five girls and two boys from Malawi and a two-year-old girl, Basmina, from Afghanistan were successfully operated upon under the Rotary Club of Chandigarh’s Heart Line Project by Dr TS Mahant, Executive Director, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, at Fortis Mohali, said club president Neenu Vij. 

Past district governor Kawal Bedi, during whose tenure as president of the Rotary Club, Chandigarh, the project was started in 1998, said, “It is humbling that we have been able to save the lives of 676 children, thanks to the vision of former Rotary international president Rajendra K Saboo, who had encouraged the club members not to let any child suffering from heart disease die for lack of money.”

Rotary district governor-elect Praveen Chander Goyal termed the Heart Line Project landmark. 

With this, the number of children from Malawi whose lives have been saved by the Rotary Club, Chandigarh, with the active partnership of Fortis Hospital, Mohali, has gone up to 22, said CJ Singh, district chairman of Rotary Public Image. 

Recently, High Commissioner-designate of Malawi to India, George Mkondwa, along with Trade Counsellor Alfred Vilili, visited the children at Fortis Hospital. 

“Even the language could not become a barrier as children adapted themselves to their Rotarian hosts and volunteers as well as doctors, said Heart Line Project chair Sukhjit Singh Gill.

Besides 529 surgeries of Indian children, there were 147 children who underwent free heart surgery. These included children from Afghanistan (three), Iraq (one), Malawi (22), Nepal (15), Nigeria (five), Pakistan (34), Rwanda (50), Uganda (seven) and Zimbabwe (10).