POSTED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2009 8:29 AM
FILED UNDER: ON ASSIGNMENT
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Doctors, nurses, family members and an NBC cameraman fanned out across the hospital in an all-out search for Aden. But the 6-year-old managed to evade us as she flitted from patient to nursing station, the hospital staff shouting out her location in the hospital atrium: "She was just here, but I think she’s gone to visit pre-op!"
Aden Eshetu had made lots of friends during her two-week hospital stay and seemed bent on seeing each and every one before her check-up. Suddenly she appeared in the corridor, strolling hand-in-hand with a nurse, an exuberant smile on her round face. She greeted her doctor with a big kiss on the cheek before hopping onto the examining table.
Incredibly, Aden had not always been so full of vigor.
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"Before the treatment she couldn’t run properly," explained her mother, Namestsigye Bire. "She couldn’t play with her friends. But now she is OK. She can play as long as she wants."
"If she had not been treated at this hospital she would have suffered more and died," said Bire, her eyes filling with tears.
Bire proudly recounted how Aden was finally able to attend school, and won the top academic award in her kindergarten despite a late start. Aden happily told me she no longer sits on the sidelines of life. "I used to watch my friends while they were playing their games, but now I can join them."
Aden suffered from a congenital heart defect. She is just one of an estimated 50,000 Ethiopian children who suffer from a similar condition. In addition, every year about 10,000 children contract rheumatic heart disease from untreated strep throat infections, an illness impoverished Ethiopian children are especially vulnerable to, according to medical experts.
With a population of about 85 million, the number of young people in Ethiopia is particularly high. The median age for the entire population is 16.9 years, and 46 percent of the population is under the age of 15, according to the CIA World Factbook. Many children are struck by a variety of illnesses and don’t make it to adulthood.
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| Mohamed Muslemany / NBC News |
| Aden Eshetu and her mother, Namestsigye Bire, healthy and happy after her successful heart surgery. |
Aden received a rare second chance. Her heart was repaired in a free, life-saving procedure at a new state-of-the-art heart clinic, the Children’s Heart Fund of Ethiopia."She would have died if she wasn’t treated and I could not afford to get her treated outside of the country," said her mother, who works as a cleaner.
One man’s mission
It took a global village to save Aden’s life and to create an institution that is giving other tiny heart patients a second chance. Doctors from Texas volunteered their time to repair Aden’s heart using a catheterization lab donated by Colorado-based Project C.U.R.E. in the brand-new hospital, built by Saudi benefactor Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al Ammoudi.
But it took just one determined man with a dream to bring them all together in one place at one time.
Dr. Belay Abegaz refused to accept that Ethiopian children with heart defects deserve less care than their counterparts in developed countries. Twenty-seven years ago, the U.S.-trained cardiologist came back to Ethiopia and began his own free clinic in two large steel shipping containers.
For the more than 1,000 patients he was unable to treat because of lack of facilities and expertise, he sought and secured free surgery abroad. Others died despite his best efforts.
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| Mohamed Muslemany / NBC News |
| Dr. Abdgaz in front of the catheterization machine. |
"I have had nightmares for 27 years," said Abegaz. "You know you have restless nights when you have something bothering you. I wished I had [the catheterization lab]; I could have done [the surgery]. But I didn’t and I see the child dying." His ultimate goal was to build a heart clinic in Addis Ababa where well-trained teams of surgeons could perform surgeries on a daily basis.
If it sounds like a modest proposal, it is not. In Ethiopia, there are only three doctors for every 100,000 citizens, one of the lowest per capita ratios of doctors in the world.
Most leave to seek lucrative positions abroad, while those who stay can only hope to earn an average of $166 per month at a government hospital. Nurses earn $75 per month.
Black Lion Hospital, the largest and best general hospital in the nation, has 800 beds and a staff of 500 doctors. Each day they treat 1,000 outpatients, who wait their turn outdoors in a packed courtyard. Hospitalized patients share shabby crowded rooms and lie on rusted beds covered by thin foam pads. Medical equipment is old and decrepit.
Although the hospital looks grim, but it is a lifeline for those who come from all corners of the country to the only place where they can be treated by specialists for nominal fees.
Medical miracle – a good hospital
The Children’s Heart Fund of Ethiopia is just across the road, but it could be a world away with its white polished corridors and spotless rooms, world-class operating theaters, post-op ward and two of the three catheterization labs in the country.
Abegaz, the director and guiding spirit of the hospital, calls himself a professional beggar. He has had to beg not only to build the hospital, but to equip it to the level that heart surgeries can be safely and routinely performed. He also has had to plead for foreign doctors to come and perform those surgeries and to train Ethiopian doctors.
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| VIDEO: Project C.U.R.E. redistributes medical supplies around the world |
A British-based charitable organization called Chain of Hope brings in a team of surgeons for about a week every two months. Other teams from the U.S. and Europe come less often. It’s not enough said Abegaz. "I am a human being and we don’t get satisfied. The more you get, the more you want. I want to get more. I want to give more … We have 10,000 to 15,000 children requiring heart surgery every year."
His immediate goal is to have medical teams come every month and stay for more than 10 days, training his staff while they save lives. Chain of Hope has already sent four Ethiopian cardiologists to the U.S. and the U.K. for training. Abegaz’s dream is that within five years, his patients will no longer be obliged to wait for the rare visit of a foreign surgical mission, but would instead receive timely care by capable Ethiopian heart surgeons.
Nor is Abegaz satisfied with the existing catheterization labs. One needs repair and both need to be equipped with machines that can immediately diagnose whether treatment was successful. He wants to replace the old models with the latest labs. And with more patients, there is also a greater demand for the many different expensive and imported disposable products – like the catheters themselves and medical gloves – that are needed during and after surgery.
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| Mohamed Muslemany / NBC News |
| Dr. Abdgaz with three of his young patients, including Aden, on the right. |
Abegaz now works full time as the hospital administrator, traveling the world to solicit support for all his young patients. He has created not only an oasis of cardiac care but a place of joy and hope. Young patients vie with each other to sit next to him, hold his hand, kiss his cheek.
Despite the day’s many demands – a full waiting room of young heart surgery candidates, a prominent visiting British medical team and preparations for his multi-city fundraising trip to the U.S. – Belay still finds time to play.
Aden entered his office and made a beeline for the candy drawer. He took her small outstretched hand in his and raced down the hall with her, both of them laughing.
More information about how to help:
The Children's Heart Fund of Ethiopia
Chain of Hope
Project C.U.R.E.
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