Saving Blue Babies, Making History in Iraq

19-day-old Ridha Ali recently became the second child ever in Iraq to undergo the arterial switch operation for Transposition of the Great Arteries. Her little body was born at the perfect time and at the most ideal developmental stage to be corrected. This picture was taken the next afternoon after the surgery.  This risky and complex operation involves cutting the aorta and pulmonary arteries and their positions are switched. Then the coronary arteries must be transferred back to the aorta very carefully. Ridha’s was a very successful outcome and she can look forward to long happy life without blue fingertips or struggles to breath. The first arterial switch operation was performed by Dr. Novick six months ago, also in Iraq (baby pictured 2nd).

 

These tender hearts inside these beautiful children and the hope they restore in their parents are the reason Dr. Novick and everyone on the medical mission team are driven to return to Iraq time and time again. They work to restore hope to a country engulfed in conflict and violence.

Only days before Dr. Novick and the ICHF team departed for Iraq there was a suicide bomber in Nasiriyah, where Dr. Novick was going to be performing surgeries, that killed 44 people. Then another bomb hit Basra, the city they flew into, that killed 53. The next day 8 died in an attack in the northern city of Mosul. The attacks in the southern part of Iraq occurred during a pilgrimage of Shiites to the holy city of Karbala.  It is terribly sad as Dr. Novick and the medical staff works indefatigably to save lives while others work to destroy lives. The tremendous work of the International Children’s Heart Foundation provides new hope to a country that, if you only read the headlines, seems hopeless. New hope springs forth. This week, a new 12-day-old baby with Transposition of the Great Arteries will be arriving in Nasiriya,  coming from Basra, joining these two cities together that witnessed such senseless bombings.