Healing Little Hearts (HLH) is delighted to announce its first ever camp to Gujarat, state of India, located on the country’s western coast. The one week camp will take place at Mahavir Hospital, Surat between the 12th and 19th of October 2019. This camp has been sponsored by Shiv Kinner Group, Leicester.
On the same week there will be two concurrent camps, one to Vijayawada, India and the other to Karachi, Pakistan - HLH first ever camp to Pakistan.
HLH was founded 12 years ago by Consultant Paediatrician Dr Sanjiv Nichani. The charity sends expert medical teams to perform free, life-saving heart surgery on babies and children in developing countries. So far they have operated on 1795 children across 11 countries over 139 International Cardiac camps. The charity was established with a view to begin making a contribution to the lack of Cardiac care for children born with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). There are at least 1 million children dying from untreated heart disease every year in these countries. In the UK alone, 6,000 children are born with CHD; they all get diagnosed, treated and operated upon with a 98-99% success rate.
In addition to sending volunteer doctors and nurses to perform heart surgery on children for free, HLH also trains and empowers local doctors and nurses in cardiac care for children.
The charity is run solely by volunteers and funded by our fundraisers and donations. The Lead Surgeon Dr Ramana Dhannapuneni, who last Friday received the Healthcare Hero Award from the British Heart Foundation, will be leading his team of nine medical volunteers to Gujarat.
Dr Ram said: “I am so excited in taking a medical team to Surat for HLH first ever camp in culturally vibrant and progressive Gujarat. It is an honour and privilege to be able to serve the children in Gujarat and train the local team. There are many poor children in Gujarat who sadly do not have access to open heart surgery. We will be able to save more children’s lives if donors come forward and sponsor a child or one of our camps.”
In the near future, HLH are expanding their international connections and plan to send teams to Uganda and Malawi.
Dr Sanjiv Nichani said: “I hope our fundraisers continue to support HLH so we can continue our missions and extend our global outreach – children are our future. HLH would like to thank our many supporters in the Gujarati community for their support over the years. Our aim is to reciprocate this support with regular camps to Gujarat”.
