More...
The cost of this mission was $63,000 for 15 children.
Help us with our next mission. Donate Now!
- From Phnom Penh to Maputo
- About the Maputo Heart Institute
- Mission MHI 2006 Mission Report
- See other MHI 2006 Mission Materials
Maputo is the capital of Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony lying between Kenya to the north and the Union of South Africa to the South with it’s eastern border on the Indian Ocean. The country contains 20 millions inhabitants and exactly 20 heart doctors, — one for every one million inhabitants, as opposed to one in ten thousand in the developed world. Open Heart surgery had been unavailable.
In 2001, with the cooperation of our partners in England and France, Portugal and Switzerland, we opened the first Hospital capable of performing heart surgery. The government gave us an abandoned structure formerly used by the army, and we transformed it into a state-of-the art cardio-vascular facility. As 160,000 children suffer from heart disease and 16,000 urgently require cardiac surgery, we need to send many more medical missions to Mozambique in the very near future. The need is urgent.
The medical mission is twofold, as are our all missions:
- To save the lives of impoverished children, thereby releaving a major pressure point on the families and communities in which these children live; and
- Training local cardiologists in modern surgical techniques, which will in turn, make it possible for 100’s more to be cured.
Our team has brought with them surgical supplies, medication, consumables, prostheses, valves, and equipment — much of which will be left behind when the medical mission is completed.
This medical mission costs SoH $60,000. Simple arithmetic shows that he cost of each operation is $4000. Less that one tenth of the cost of similar surgery in the United States. The surgical team has donated it’s time and expertise but there are other costs; transportation, freight, accommodation and use of the hospital facilities.
Mission Report now available.