Fellow Rotarians, Below is a message from Jess Socrates, former Hanover Rotarian, who spearheaded the Operation Braveheart Project in the Philippines for many years. Braveheart III is running and have served 8 children thus far. Below is his update.
Hello Peg and Warren,
Sharing with you progress of Operation Braveheart III. More to come later. We anticipate to repair over 100 patients.
Hello to everyone. Luz and I were in Hanover last Wednesday (missed the Tuesday meeting). I met up with Mike Hockenberry in the hospital.
-Jess
Operation Braveheart III is now up and running. This is my FIRST report for Operation Braveheart III. I am sending with this email a collage of the first eight patients that Dr. Jonas repaired from August to September 2022. Six of the eight patients are children, two are adults. Note that in addition to the 3 PDA's, Dr. Jonas also repaired 3 patients with ASD and 2 with VSD. We anticipate to see more ASD's and VSD's in the future since PDA closures are now also being performed on charity patients at the National Children's Hospital.
Our #8 patient in the collage, Sky B. is a 3 year old boy with two synchronous heart defects: PDA and VSD. Sky was a patient of the cardiac surgery service and was scheduled for open heart repair. When Dr. Jonas found out about this, he advised the doctors in charge that he could repair both of Sky's heart defects by transcatheter procedure. The 100,000 pesos from a benefactor allocated for Sky’s open heart surgery paid for the VSD device instead. Braveheart paid only for the PDA device. Sky was spared from open heart surgery. Dr. Jonas repaired both defects by transcatheter procedure at the same time.
As of today, Operation Braveheart has facilitated the transcatheter repair of 182 patients.
Operation Braveheart continues to accept donations so we can sustain this project even after Braveheart III funds get depleted. If you care to, please write out your donation check to: UPMASA and on the memo line, write "OPERATION BRAVEHEART." Mail your check to:
UPMASA TreasurerOr you may donate through the UPMASA website. https://www.upmasa.org/product/operation-braveheart/
2304 Kossuth St
Lafayette IN 47904
Thank you very much for your continued support.
Jess Socrates, M.D., Coordinator Operation Braveheart