BEIRUT: Every year, 600 children in Lebanon are born with a heart condition known as a congenital anomaly that, if left untreated, will claim the lives of many before they reach their first birthday.
However, while 85 percent of children who suffer from the affliction – the No. 1 killer of children under the age of 1 – can survive if they undergo surgery, the cost of the procedure is beyond the means of many.
“Suppose you are not able to operate [on a newborn with a congenital anomaly] because there is no money,” said Dr. Ramzi Ashoush, a specialist in pediatric cardiac surgery and founder of Heartbeat. “So the equation becomes: If there is money they live, if there is no money they die, which is hard to admit.”
A new campaign by Heartbeat, an NGO that works specifically on covering the cost of surgeries for infants born with congenital anomalies, is hoping to raise more funds to help these children. Last week Heartbeat distributed 100,000 cardboard piggy banks to schools and companies partnered with the organization.
Over the next month people can deposit any spare change they have into the piggy banks, which will be dropped off between March 9 and 14 at Bank Audi branches, from where they will be collected and donated to Heartbeat. The average cost of a surgery for a child ranges between $4,000 and $5,000.
“Some people will give them back with LL250 inside,” Wadih Remo, the managing director of Heartbeat, said. “But this 250 multiplied by 100,000 people, that’s going to secure the required funds.”
The box itself has a picture of the Lebanese “national hero” Maxime Chaya, the man who raised a Lebanese flag on each of the world’s seven summits, to relay to people that they too can be heroes, Renno said.
Chaya’s documentary about his boat trip across the Indian Ocean premiered last week at the ABC malls in Dbayeh and Ashrafieh as part of the Heartbeat box campaign.
The organization launched the campaign as part of its 10-year anniversary celebration. The French “Operation Yellow Coins,” which was chaired by Bernadette Chirac, the wife of former French President Jacques Chirac, inspired the idea.
“Operation Yellow Coins,” which was started in 1989, is an organization that distributes piggy banks to schools to raise money for different pediatric hospital programs each year. It draws its name from the color of the franc, the former French currency. It has been very successful, raising 4.1 million euros in 2009 that funded 480 projects in 2010.
The Heartbeat box marks a new fundraising approach for the NGO, which is known for hosting concerts each year to gather donations.
Ashoush founded Heartbeat 10 years ago for a combination of reasons. During his time in medical school in the late ’80s, he and some fellow students formed a band and put on successful concerts. There was a popular demand to get them to perform again.
Upon returning to Lebanon after a stay in France, Ashoush noticed how the economic situation in the country was preventing people from accessing life-saving surgeries.
“People were asking us, ‘Why don’t you sing?’ So [we thought] why don’t we use all these musical talents and put them in the service of this cause and this is how the idea [was born],” Ashoush said.
Ashoush directs all of the performances and he and his partners select the new performers.
“[Dr. Ashoush] is the right of passage,” Remo explained. “Quite often during the year we get a phone call saying, ‘I want to sing and I want to sing with Heartbeat,’ so I direct them to Dr. Ramzi.”
All doctors are then put through an audition, styled similar to The Voice, in which Ashoush and his band mates sit on a panel to decide whether the “artists” make the grade, Remo said.
Dr. Jack Boutros is one of Heartbeat’s performers but he joined through a different route. During his fifth year of medical school he participated in a talent show whose panel Ashoush happened to be sitting on. Afterward, Ashoush asked Boutros if he wanted to join Heartbeat.
“I had been to a few Heartbeat concerts before so I said, ‘Definitely I want to be a part of it!’” Boutros recalled.
Since starting in 2005, Heartbeat has steadily grown from helping 30 children a year to 275 in 2014. They’ve also expanded their operations from being specifically at the Hotel Dieu Hospital to now treating patients at Rizk Hospital as well.
Ashoush estimated that only 100 of the more than 300 newborns that require surgery for congenital anomalies were receiving them prior to Heartbeat’s inception.
The group is focused on covering the gap between the cost of surgery and what families can afford. Jihad Farouche, a social worker from the Health Ministry at Hotel Dieu, said that the government also provides up to 75 percent of the cost based on a patient’s financial situation.
However, this help is only extended to Lebanese citizens. Renno said the influx of Syrian and Iraqi refugees has expanded the amount of patients in need. Last year they helped 30-40 Iraqi children, while up to 10 percent of their patients were Syrian.
To fill the void of government aid, Heartbeat has partnered with several international organizations to help provide the necessary operations.
Renno estimated that the number of Syrian refugee children born with heart disease could actually match the number of Lebanese children born with the same affliction, dramatically increasing the aid required.
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