Mission - to decrease the global inequity in the delivery of high-quality health care by improving the access that the underserved have to cardiac surgery

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Humanitarian Heroes

Organization Directory

On Location

This section contains articles written about World Heart Foundation's Affiliates' field experiences, cardiac surgery, heart care, public health, politics, cultural context, demography, and travel in different countries, regions, and sites. Please find out how you can contribute by sending a note to Jim Cox, MD, World Heart Foundation's CEO and President.

Russian Cardiovascular Surgery - Current status
Tom Pezzella describes click here the history, current status and efforts of the cardiothoracic community to improve cardiac surgery in Russia, a country with a well establiched history in cardiothoracic surgery.

Save-A-Heart in Santiago, Dominion Republic
Carlos Troconis of Save-A-Heart Foundation reports program development in Santiago, DR during a poster session of the World Society for Pediatric and Congential Heart Surgery. To see poster (2.7 MB file) click here.

India Cardiovascular Surgery - Current status
On Location, Tom Pezzella describes click here the history, current status and efforts of the cardiothoracic community to improve cardiac surgery in India, a country with a rapidly growing economy and medical care system.

Visit to Mexico
Tom Pezzella describes click here the history and efforts of the humanitarian community to improve cardiac surgery in Mexico, a country with an evolving medical care system. Several US surgeons are performing cardiac surgery for congenital heart disease.

Progress in Peru
Chuck Mulhern describes click here the latest in a multiphase effort to establish a cardiac unit in Arequipa. Twelve accomplishments are sited using many local and donated resources. The next mission is expected in September 2006

Visit Vietnam
Tom Pezzella describes click here the efforts of the humanitarian community to improve cardiac surgery in Vietnam, a country undergoing vast social, economic, and political changes. Many surgeons in 10 centers are performing cardiac surgery for rheumatic and congenital heart disease and, with increasing westernization, stenting for coronary artery disease.

Cardiac Surgery in Mongolia
Tom Pezzella describes click here the efforts of the humanitarian community to improve cardiac surgery in Mongolia, a country undergoing vast social, economic, and political changes. The majority of cases seen at the cardiac care center involve rheumatic valve disease and congenital heart disease. However, as the population becomes more urbanized and the Mongolian diet becomes more westernized, coronary artery disease is becoming more prevalent.

Chernobyl Heart
Since 1996, the International Children's Heart Foundation (ICHF) has sent surgical teams to Belarus to help children in the Chernobyl region needing heart surgery. "Chernobyl Heart," an Academy Award winning documentary short, features their work. Find out more… ICHF's Medical Director William Novick spoke on April 27^th at the United Nations to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Read ICHF's press release.

New Zealand Pediatric Cardiac Team Working in Gaza, East Jerusalem
On March 19, 2003 an 8-member team of pediatric cardiac surgeons and nurses from New Zealand arrived in the Gaza Strip for a week of pediatric cardiac surgery at the Shifa government hospital in Gaza City. On March 27th, the team will move to work at Makassed Hospital on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. The team is lead by Alan Kerr, a senior cardiac surgeon from Green Lane Hospital in Auckland. Dr. Kerr has been on three previous missions to Palestine and is currently doing a six month program in Makassed in which he is training local doctors and helping set up a pediatric cardiac ICU. This team was sent by the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, an American nonprofit, who are working to set up a pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine through the International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO), which was headed by Guido Van Nooten of the University of Gent in Belgium, and will be headed in 2004 by Giancarlo Crupi, who lead a pediatric cardiac team to Gaza in February. He is from Bergamo, Italy.