The Qatar Red Crescent announced today that its office in Afghanistan has completed the third phase of the Small Heart Operations project, which included performing 60 cardiac catheterization operations for children suffering from congenital heart defects and diseases, in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in cooperation with the Red Crescent and the Ministry of Health in Afghanistan.
The idea of the project is to treat children born with severe heart defects, deformities and holes, with a focus on poor families with limited incomes who cannot afford the costs of treatment for their children.
The cardiac catheterization procedures are performed in specialized hospitals and centers that have the competence, expertise and technical capabilities to host such operations.
The humanitarian side of the project was completed by distributing gifts and games to children to raise their spirits before and after the operation.
The Afghan Red Crescent has been implementing a long-term program for this purpose for several years, by building partnerships and providing support to treat these cases, and it currently has lists of 7,000 children and girls who need urgent medical intervention to treat their heart problems.
Studies show that one child out of every 100 children in Afghanistan is born with heart defects, which means a total of 128,000 children nationwide, and most of these children do not receive the necessary medical care due to poverty or the lack of medical services, specializations and capabilities to conduct the necessary treatment interventions.
And based on its responsibility and humanitarian mission, the Qatar Red Crescent took the initiative to contribute to the treatment of a number of critical cases, at a total cost of $ 150,728 from the gifts and donations of people of righteousness and charity in the State of Qatar.
This is the third stage of the Small Hearts Program in Afghanistan, and other stages will follow under the cooperation agreement with the Afghan Red Crescent, which is in charge of selecting hospitals and specialized heart centers to contract with it and host catheterization operations.
The actual launch of the project came after the completion of all the logistical and technical preparations and procedures, the completion of the verification and verification process of the statements of the beneficiaries of the children, and the verification of the capabilities of the hospitals in which the operations would take place.
