There has been a team of Heart Surgeons from Ft. Myers, Fl. that has come down to Santiago about 10 times to do heart surgery on poor patients.
They have operated 100 patients to date. They have donated equipment valued at more than 600,000 dollars. If you add the cost of doing open heart surgery on 100 people in the US, then they have contributed close to 4 million dollars to the city of Santiago. Most of the patients are young (mid 20's-early 30's) that have been afected by reuhmatic fever, a disease that ruins heart valves. This does not happen in the 1st world, only in the 3rd world, where primary care is deficient. Without these operations, these people would face certain death.
I have been lucky enough to be a part of this group on several occassions, starting when I was a medical student at Cabral y Baez Hospital.
I thought I'd share with the forum and hopefully help get the word out of what is being done.
http://www.heartmission.com
They have operated 100 patients to date. They have donated equipment valued at more than 600,000 dollars. If you add the cost of doing open heart surgery on 100 people in the US, then they have contributed close to 4 million dollars to the city of Santiago. Most of the patients are young (mid 20's-early 30's) that have been afected by reuhmatic fever, a disease that ruins heart valves. This does not happen in the 1st world, only in the 3rd world, where primary care is deficient. Without these operations, these people would face certain death.
I have been lucky enough to be a part of this group on several occassions, starting when I was a medical student at Cabral y Baez Hospital.
I thought I'd share with the forum and hopefully help get the word out of what is being done.
http://www.heartmission.com