Wolfson heart surgeons save Syrian girl

A Syrian girl and her mother at Wolfson Medical Center

A four-year-old girl from Syria underwent successful lifesaving heart surgery at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon on Monday as part of its voluntary Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) activities. The child, whose identity is not being released to keep the family safe from extremists in her country, was referred to SACH by an American humanitarian organization operating in Israel and Jordan.

SACH, founded by the late pediatric heart surgeon Dr. Amiram Cohen, has treated more than 3,000 children from 44 developing nations. On Monday, Syria became the 45th country.


The girl was brought here last week from an undisclosed third country where she and her mother were living as refugees of the current Syrian civil war. Upon her arrival, the girl was examined by the SACH medical team, who decided that she would undergo open-heart surgery as soon as possible -- all of it free and supplied by volunteer medical staffers and raised funds. The procedure was performed at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. She is now recovering in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.

According to the child’s mother, doctors in Syria discovered the girl’s heart condition when the child was six months old, but proper medical care was not available. "We kept taking her to doctors but nothing could be done for her," the mother said. "She couldn't run and play like other children, and she was very sick most of the time." The mother said after the operations that the doctors treated them very well. At Wolfson, she met other SACH patients and their families -- many of them Palestinian and Arabic speaking.