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Hrudaya to do free heart surgeries for CHD affected poor children
India Adds 2,00,000 Congenital Heart Disease Cases Each Year: Dr. Gopichand.
BY A CORRESPONDENT
5
August, 2005: Every year nearly 2 lakh children are born
in India with congenital heart disease
(CHD) adding to the existing millions
suffering from the disease. Of these
only 6 to 8 percent of them receive
medical treatment. The rest either
don’t get timely treatment or their
parents simply cannot afford the cost
of surgery and treatment, which is true in a majority of cases. Shockingly, in India each year about 121,000 cases of adult CHD cases reach the age of 15 years due to lack of health awareness, poverty and inadequate healthcare facilities. This startling revelation was given by Dr. Gopichand Mannam, the Managing Trustee of Hrudaya Foundation, a charitable trust that does free treatment for underprivileged children afflicted by congenital heart disease.
Dr. Gopichand reiterated the need for greater focus on this ever increasing and enormous disease burden and said, “Congenital heart disease is a growing and a neglected problem in India. Due to lack of facilities, money or awareness, CHD patients in India often live and die untreated. This is extremely ironical considering that all forms of CHD are completely treatable by surgery and medication, after which a child can look forward to a normal life. We need the community action to rid our country of the curse of Congenital Heart Disease.”
Dr. Nagarjuna Ponugoti, Managing Trustee of the US based ‘Cure A Little Heart Foundation’, the organization which helped Hrudaya’s fund mobilization in the United States, added, “Children are the future, and we don’t see what we do as charity. It is a necessity. If we don’t protect the children today, mankind will suffer tomorrow. The important thing is to act - and act now!”
Recently, Dr. Gopichand mobilized US $ 2,00,000, with promise for another $100,000 by the end of this year, from NRIs across the world to aid his treatment of CHD. Elaborating on the initiative he said, “Hrudaya Foundation, in collaboration with the US based Cure a Little Heart Foundation organized a charity dinner to fund free heart surgeries in India. To our delight, we mobilized the expected amount, which will go towards saving the lives of 200 to 250 children suffering from Congenital Heart Disease. This is real community participation and we can get rid of the disease only if socially conscious individuals and communities come together in this endeavour.” Support to the cause can come in various ways, and a case to point is the contribution of Pragati Printers, the leading printing house in the country, which designed & printed of the brochures for the Hrudaya’s recent fund mobilization drive.
Hrudaya regularly conducts free CHD screening camps and plans to take the screening camps to every part of India. Further, the charitable trust sponsors free surgeries for underprivileged children afflicted with the disease and bears all costs of surgery. In the last one year Dr. Gopichand has successfully conducted more than 400 free operations on poor children afflicted with
CHD.
Hrudaya Foundation, a non-profit organization, has been established primarily to raise funds that will be used to provide treatment to poor children affected with congenital heart diseases. Hrudaya also strives to create awareness about congenital and acquired heart diseases among general masses and doctors. Leading industrialists, corporate heads, and doctors are its patrons. To know more on Hrudaya and its activities log on to
www.hrudaya.org
BY A CORRESPONDENT
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