Heart2Heart-Children with Congenital Heart Defects

RE: REPORT FOR THE ROTARY-UHI VSD CLOSURE CATH CAMP  

We successfully completed a paediatric cardiac catheterization week from 27^th to 29^th April 2026 that was in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Entebbe, Uganda and the Rotary Club of El Tahrir, Cairo Egypt and was sponsored through a Rotary International grant. We had a visiting team of cardiologists lead by Prof Amal Elsisi (Interventional Paediatric Cardiologist and team leader), Prof Ahmed Sharif and Prof Ghada from the Egyptian African Heart Association.  This was the first such catheterization camp held at the Uganda Heart Institute with a team from Egypt.

The camp started with an introductory meeting between the UHI staff, visiting team, Rotary Club of Entebbe and other members of the Rotary fraternity in Uganda. The meeting was also attended by Egyptian ambassador to Uganda recognizing the important relationship between Egypt and Uganda.  

The UHI team worked very cooperatively to have all the patients admitted in our in-patient department on Ward 6C and processed for the procedures. After the procedures were done, the patients were kept in the cardiac HDU on ward IC until discharge.

On 28^th April 2026 the together with visiting team, the UHI launched the Sports Cardiology unit. This unit will help in the screening of athletes for participation in competitive sports, and will be especially helpful as Uganda co-hosts the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) football tournament in 2027.

This camp has greatly improved the skills of the local pediatric cardiac cath team to start doing VSD device closures independently. We will also explore training opportunities through the Arab League of Nations technical assistance program for African countries. The visiting team is open to conducting further skills training workshops in the future 

ACHIEVEMENTS

1. Over a period of 3 days, we carried out 10 procedures on 9 children
2. A total of 8 Children had successful VSD device closure done. Unfortunately, in one child the device embolized in to the left pulmonary artery, but was successfully retrieved in the catheterization lab. The child was advised surgery
3. One child had successful dilatation of a Superior Vena Cava Stenosis
4. All 9 children where discharged home in good condition
5. One child who had been planned for the camp did not turn up because he had gotten a fracture from a fall and was still hospitalized for the fracture.
6. The visiting team left behind two VSD devices and their delivery systems to be used by the local team to treat other children

My Dear Donors,

Happy 2026. This is our seventh year together what a fantastatic achievement. I would like to sincerely thank you all for your generous contrbutions to help poor children with congenital heart defects over the past years and many years to come as we are expanding our services to Africa. I would like to thank all medical staff who are volunteering their time and expertise to help children with heart conditions in remote areas of Egypt like Upper Egypt (Sohag and Assiut and Beni Suef). Unfortunately economic status in Egypt is getting disasterous with the EGP losing more than half of its value. It is soaring expensive for 90% of the population to make ends meet. Almost 40% of the poplulation earn less than one USD a day according the World Bank reports on Egypt. The funds from yourselves are helping those poor children as the government can not cope. GlobalGiving donations are added to Heart to Heart project Global Grant funds from other NGOs. We have raised 64K USD in Heart2Heart Phase 5 amounting to over 350K USD over the last 6 years curing 150 children.  These children suffered from either holes in their hearts or narrowing of vessels or valves. They had non-invasive catheter procedures to close the holes using state of the art recent technology devices or balloon dilate the stenotic valves or vessels. The consumables eg (devices, balloons stents ... etc) are extremely expensive and consume 80% of the budget allocated to each patient averaging 2200 USD per device.We have concluded phase 5 and operated on the last 6 children successfully in Cairo and Alexandria. These patients are recruited from the waiting lists who have been waiting for long. 

Those of you who wish more information on the patients please email me: elsisi96@yahoo.com. We will continue our work we have very long waiting lists.  Please continue to donate, your donations are mandatory.

With your help we will also start Heart2Heart Uganda who are desperate for our expertise and they have endless patients queos, So again please continue to doanate

Yours

Links:

• FB page of Heart2Heart project