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Operation Iraqi Hearts: Beginnings

There are any number of children around the world who cannot be treated for serious and complicated medical conditions in their own communities.  The reasons are many, including a lack of medical infrastructure, need for advanced medical techniques, political or social upheaval and financial need.  Humanitarian groups such as Gift of Life International, Rotary International and the Rachel B. Cooper Foundation work around the globe to identify those in need and partner with leading institutions like Montefiore Medical Center to provide the specialized medical interventions and life-saving care that can give these children a new start for a healthy life.  

In Baghdad, the families of some of these children in need seek help at the US military's Civic Assistance Command (CAC) center in the Green Zone.  These families are referred to a unit of the CAC called the Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center (HACC). 

In September 2005, an American reservist assigned to HACC, Sargent Marikay Satryano, a schoolteacher from Tarrytown, NY, identified approximately 60 children in Baghdad as potential candidates for heart surgery.  Over time, the HACC transported these children and their families by bus to Amman, Jordan, where they received medical evaluations by a Jordanian pediatric cardiologist.  Several children with life-threatening congenital heart defects were selected for specialized heart surgery in the US.  Without surgery, none of the children would live to adulthood.
 
Sargent Satryano, who had received a scholarship from the Rotary Club as a student in New York, contacted a local Rotary Club in Amman.  Through website research, she learned about a program sponsored by the Rotarians, called Gift of Life, that helps children with heart problems around the world get medical care.  She contacted Gift of Life Chairman Robert Donno, who lives on Long Island, via email.  He helped her coordinate financial support and discounted airline transport via Royal Jordanian Airlines and found families in the New York metro area to host and house the children and parents locally. 

The Gift of Life then contacted Samuel Weinstein, MD, a world-renowned pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, in New York City.  With the support of the leadership at Montefiore Medical Center and The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, Dr. Weinstein agreed to donate his services and the Rotarians and the Rachel B. Cooper Foundation agreed to help pay for the hospitalizations.