The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : The road from Iraq to India... through Israeli mediation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 08, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

The road from Iraq to India... through Israeli mediation

M. Dinesh Varma

Iraqi boys with congenital heart defect get new lease of life

A SNAP FOR THE FAMILY ALBUM: K. M. Cherian (third from left standing) with the three Iraqi boys and their parents after the successful surgery.

CHENNAI: Three Iraqi boys face life-threatening heart conditions. A missionary organisation based in Israel arranges their visit to India for treatment. A German well versed in Arabic volunteers to be the interpreter for the children. And a Chennai cardiac centre, which waives surgery expenses, treats the patients at its satellite hospital in Parumala village in Kerala.

The compelling force that binds these elements of exotica is the kindness of the human heart that helped Cherojima Ismail, Rekar Ahmed and Yaha Hussain get a new lease of life after surgery at Dr. K.M. Cherian Heart Foundation, Frontier Lifeline's St. Gregorious Cardio Vascular Centre in Parumala in Pathanamthitta district in Kerala.

"The boys have responded very well to the surgery and should soon be able to resume normal activity", said K.M. Cherian, CEO, Frontier Lifeline, who performed the surgeries.

Dr. Cherian had operated upon 20 Iraqi children with cyanotic heart disease in March 2004 and another six children from the strife-torn nation in April this year.

Blue babies

All three patients taken to Parumala were `blue-babies,' a syndrome of congenital heart malformation characterised by a defect in the ventricular septum, misplacement of the origin of the aorta, narrowing of the pulmonary artery, and enlargement of the right ventricle. In fact, the youngest of the lot, two-year-old Ismail, only had a single ventricle and his nails and tongue were blue.

The older boys, seven-year-old Ahmed and four-year-old Hussain, were unable to walk because of the debilitating condition and collapsed at the slightest physical exertion, Dr. Cherian said.

The boys' trip, accompanied by one parent or both, was arranged by Brothers Together, which was originally founded in Israel as Shevet Achim — Hebrew for "Brothers Together," by Jonathan Miles, an American missionary.

The boys and their families along with the interpreter arrived in Kerala on June 2. The surgeries at the Parumala cardiac facility were performed over June 3 and 4.

First rural cardiac centre

According to Dr. Cherian, this could well be the first instance anywhere in the world of a cardiac centre in a village treating foreign patients. The unit with its super speciality cardio thoracic facilities offers the most modern cardiac care programmes in a village setting.

The unit is equipped with an emergency cardiac critical care unit, computerised ECG and treadmill, blood gas analysers and Doppler ventilators. The hospital is also connected to the Frontier Lifeline complex in Chennai through a telemedicine network. In little over a year, it has performed over 200 open-heart surgeries, limiting mortality rate to just 1 per cent.

Goodwill gestures continue to be extended to the Iraqi boys. A private tourist resort in Kumarakam has proposed to foot the bill for a two-day stay. The boys are absorbing yet another unusual experience: the heavy monsoon in Kerala.

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