KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 16 (Bernama) – To help meet an urgent need to provide surgery to children in India suffering from congenital heart defects (CHD), the Heart to Heart Foundation (H2H Foundation) has launched the ‘Freedom from CHD’ initiative.
An event under the initiative called ‘Batting-For-Life’ will see legendary cricketer, Sunil Gavaskar -- who is also the foundation’s board of governors chairman – engaging in Heart to Heart conversations while on a multi-city US tour.
The former India international cricketer will also be signing memorabilia bats for event attendees who will ‘bat-for-life’ by supporting free heart surgery.
“These tiny tots are waiting for their hearts to be healed. Paediatric cardiac treatment should be within the reach of every child and every parent irrespective of their financial or social status,” Gavaskar said in a statement.
Each year in India 300,000 children are born with CHD and tragically, 25 per cent of them die before their first birthday.
“There are over 36,000 children waiting for a free heart surgery in the next two years. We are targeting to support 5,000 free heart surgeries this year, increasing each year thereafter,” said H2H Foundation trustee and director, Arvind Thiagarajan.
Cost of surgeries and other required programmes run into several millions of dollars every year.
Sai Sanjeevani hospitals in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Haryana are India's largest provider of totally free paediatric heart procedures, performing nearly 10,000 surgeries and catheter interventions since 2012.
Free heart surgery, screening programmes for CHD, prevention through better nutrition of expectant mothers and research to prevent CHD formation are all part of the ‘Freedom from CHD’ initiative.
For more information, visit http://www.h2h.foundation.
-- BERNAMA
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