Warm hearts and Hebrew in Hebei

The Israeli and Chinese doctors and nurses who operated for hours on five-year-old Yang Bin's heart were not only closing a hole between the left and right ventricles, they were also strengthening a bridge between their two countries.

Last month was not the first time Hebrew could be heard inside the Hebei Children's Hospital in Shijiazhuang. This is the eighth mission to China from the Israel-based charity Save a Child's Heart (SACH).

The SACH medical professionals are from the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, where Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Hebei Children's Hospital Wang Jianming studied in 2000, as have five other Chinese doctors and eight nurses.

While training and cooperation happen both in Israel and during missions in China, the primary purpose of the relationship between SACH and Hebei Children's Hospital is helping individual children, about 10 of whom can be operated on in a week by the Israeli team.

The hole in Yang Bin's heart is called VSD (ventricular septal defect), and it prevented him from going to school and his parents from being able to leave him to go to work. His grandfather Yang Lijun heard about the SACH mission on local television and traveled 200 kilometers from his village to see the Israeli doctors.

Throughout the week a single phrase was translated over and over for Yang Bin's and other families: "After the surgery, your child will lead a normal life." With the VSD repaired, the proper amount of blood can flow normally to his lungs and body, and he can breath easier and develop muscles without losing calories to labored respiratory efforts. Already two days after his surgery, Yang Bin was out of the ICU and breathing on his own.

China is only one of SACH's medical partnership countries, and in some ways it is an exceptional case. Normally when a SACH mission visits a developing country, the Israeli team examines about 50 to 100 kids, and decides to bring a select number of patients back to Israel for surgical treatment. "When we go to Africa it's only for clinics and diagnoses and follow-ups," says Dr Alona Raucher-Sternfeld, senior pediatric cardiologist, "because those hospitals are not equipped for heart surgeries."

In Shijazhuang it is a different story, says SACH director of operations Simon Fisher."Each time we come back we see more progress being made in terms of infrastructure, equipment and know-how."

The Israeli volunteers brought 30 boxes of disposable materials to Hebei, offsetting one of the biggest costs when performing a surgery, but otherwise they could rely on the local hospital's equipment.

Besides finding the necessary facilities here in China, the Israelis also found familiar faces. When Lior Sasson, head of the cardiothoracic surgery department at the Wolfson Medical Center, performed Yang Bin's surgery with local surgeon Han Jiangang, it was one more operation in a series of ongoing educational exchanges between the two Israeli and Chinese doctors.

"I would not perform a surgery with another doctor if I didn't already trust his abilities and know we could communicate," says Sasson. "In fact, I am currently training another Chinese doctor from Hebei in Israel right now."

Pediatric Surgery Chief Wang trained in Israel, but thinks the best exchanges happen when the Israelis come to his hospital. "This way we pair up nurses and specialists together, one from my hospital and one from Wolfson Medical Center. So we learn more than when we go to Israel."

He also points out that many of the patients themselves get to learn from the SACH mission. "Farmers don't know a lot about foreigners," Wang says. "When SACH comes here, suddenly they are face to face. Although Israel is so small you can barely find it on a map, many people know Israel's technology is very good," and so they want to have operations with foreign experts.

"The future is with the Chinese," says Sasson. Thanks to his volunteer efforts and the cooperation between Israeli and Chinese medical professionals, Yang Bin will get to be a part of it.

(China Daily 12/01/2008 page8)