What We Do · Provide Treatment
International Medical Mission Trips
Global Heartcare Foundation’s partner countries have numerous patients in urgent need of life-saving treatment, many having waited years for surgery.
Cardiac Surgery in Partnership with Under-Resourced Communities
Through our international medical missions, we've performed hundreds of cardiac surgeries on children and young adults from various countries including India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Nepal, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
These missions also allow us to collaborate with hospital management at our partner hospitals, addressing their day-to-day challenges, and mentoring and supporting local cardiac teams.
Meet Our Patients
These patients were treated during Minneapolis Heart Institute® medical mission trips at the Cardiac Center in Addis Ababa.
Meet Beza
Beza is 18 years old, and currently lives in Addis Ababa. In 2015, Beza began to experience unusual symptoms, “I started to get short of breath. At night, I started to have a hard time breathing. There were nights I just sat up all night.”
Beza fainted at her home in Gondar, and her symptoms became progressively worse. She eventually had to drop out of school because the three-hour walk was too strenuous. When her symptoms worsened, her brother took her to a hospital in the city of Bahir Dar.
Eventually, she was referred to the Cardiac Center in Addis Ababa, where she was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease. Under the care of our cardiac surgical team, Beza underwent a successful double heart valve surgery in September of 2017.
Meet Daniel
Daniel received a diagnosis of chronic heart disease at the age of 8. He lived with rheumatic heart disease, which had damaged his heart valves, for 6 years while awaiting surgery.
Because of his heart disease, Daniel had been unable to make friends with other children as he was unable to play any sports, and he said he has been very lonely due to his heart condition. Both of his parents died two years ago with complications of rheumatic heart disease.
Daniel has been living in an orphanage since they died. He was seen during a recent medical mission by the heart team and successfully underwent a double heart valve surgery.
Meet Eskedar
In 2011, during a cardiac surgery medical mission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, our team evaluated a teenager, with heart failure due to damage of two of her heart valves from rheumatic heart disease.
She underwent successful heart surgery and lives today with her husband and daughter.
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2023
