With a total of 11 missions of Cardiac Surgery since 2011, "Chen Lespwa Ayiti" and its partners in the "Chaine de l'Espoir France" and "Gift of Life-Rotary International USA" and "Kado Lavi" were able to save 130 Haitians through operations performed in Haiti, to the Clinic Lambert, Petion-ville.

The French surgeon Daniel Roux, a specialist in cardiac surgery at the University Hospital of Toulouse (France) and François Lacour-Gayet, founder of "Open Hearts Haiti," Head of the Paediatric Department of Cardiac Surgery "Montefiore Children's Hospital" in New York came each dozen times in Haiti with their team at the invitation of "Chenn Lespwa Ayiti" for a total of 11 missions.

Children with heart defects, young adults, babies, the cases presented by the team of Haitian cardiologists led by Dr. Michel Theard, cardiologist, founder member of "Chenn Lespwa Ayiti" are of patients suffering from severe cardiac malformations, whose survival depends surgery.

These cardiac operations were able to be performed with excellent results at the Clinic Lambert ; the missions are financed by the "Chaine de l’Espoir" and "Gift of Life / Rotary International". "This is a real chain of mutual assistance and of heart : all doctors who are volunteers, they take their vacation time to operate freely in Haiti," said Professor Lacour Gayet, which ended in mid-November the fifth and final mission of the year 2013.

Haitian surgeon, Margareth Degand, host of the missions declared. "This is a huge effort from all, but for a performance that is worth sacrifice: 130 people rescued in a little over 2 years, it is a victory! The challenge now is to consider a real hospital dedicated to heart surgery."

Alongside foreign surgeons and their Franco-American teams, it's a whole Haitian team that offers assistance and learns, or trains to gestures and highly specialized techniques that accompany cardiac surgery. Machinery and equipment come from abroad and for each mission 3 pallets of drugs and supplies are shipped by air. Teams of 10 to 15 people alternate depending on the mission, real marathons during which carers are everyday at least 12 hours to block.

All open-heart surgeries are performed at four hands, in the presence of two heart surgeons. "Gradually, we integrate physicians practicing here to learn about our technology" said Dr. Daniel Roux of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) in Toulouse (France).

French, American, Haitian from her or the diaspora, form a winning team in the operating room. Now the challenge is not only to make hearts beat properly, but also to transmit knowledge and actions that will save other children in a dedicated heart surgery center in Haiti. "Our ambition is to offer it for free to disadvantaged and make first benefit children as early as possible in their life in order to avoid deterioration of the heart muscle. We also need to train local teams : 'biomed', technicians, nurses, cardiologists, anesthesiologists and surgeons, to ensure Haitian uccession in the next 10 years," said Professor Francois Lacour-Gayet of the Montefiore Hospital in New York.

HL/ HaïtiLibre