Free Heart Surgeries for Rio's Poor Children

Summary

Provides access for poor families to medical professionals and life-saving heart surgeries for children who languish in sub-substandard medical situations and can die from inadequate care.

What is the issue, problem, or challenge?

Poor children born with cardiac problems need surgery, but have trouble getting care from public hospitals, which lack physical and infrastructural resources. A large number of poor children born with cardiac problems die waiting for treatment. If they do receive treatment from the public health system, it is generally by doctors without adequate skills. When the case is complex, treatment can endanger rather than improve the child's condition. Rio has no children’s hospital.

How will this project solve this problem?

Each child undergoes a detailed assessment consisting of medical examinations, ECG, and echocardiogram. Diagnosis and treatment are carried out by a professional team of specialists. Once the diagnosis is made the treatment is determined.

Potential Long Term Impact

There is nothing sadder than a parent who is unable to save a dying child simply because he does not have the financial resources required. Every life is precious.

Project Message

Taking care of these young lives, we learn that being able to serve is a great privilege: the privilege to replace with a smile the expression of pain on... a child suffering from heart disease.
- Dr.Rosa Célia Pimentel Barbosa, Founder and Director of ProCrianca Cardiaca

Additional Documentation

This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).

Resources