About Heart Healers International

Our Success | Where We Help | Sponsors & Supporters

Our Success

The accomplishments of our missions include:

Patient care:

Over 1500 children have received lifesaving treatment. However, hundreds of patients are still on our waiting list.

Improving diagnostic capabilities:

Over 10,000 children have been evaluated by echocardiography, dramatically improving their chances of getting treatment while improving the diagnostic capabilities of local medical personnel.

Heart surgery and cardiac catheterization:

Over 2000 open-heart surgeries have been performed in Uganda since 2007. Complexity has increased each year and the survival rate is over 95%.
Today, the majority of surgeries are performed independently by the Uganda Heart Institute, a critical step that first took place in 2009. A brand new 7-bed cardiac ICU opened in July 2023.
The first two catheterizations in Uganda were performed by Dr. Kanishka Ratnayaka in February 2012. 16 cases were performed during our 2014 mission in the new state-of-the-art biplane catheterization laboratory.
Over 500 pediatric catheterizations have been performed at the Uganda Heart Institute, the vast majority by the local team independently.
Patients from Kenya, Congo, and Sudan have been treated at the Uganda Heart Institute. It is the recognized leader in East Africa.

Facilitating treatment abroad for more complex children:

Over 500 children have been treated abroad in five continents including 46 in Washington, DC.

Education and training:

Didactic and bedside advanced ICU nursing curriculum led by nurses from Children’s National Hospital, recognizing that nursing empowerment is a critical step to long-term sustainability.
Resident/fellow exchange program: Over 40 US fellows have gone to Uganda.
Over 50 Ugandan physicians and nurses have trained abroad, several in the US. Hundreds of local Ugandan staff have benefited from education and skill transfer during visits by Dr. Sable and team members.

Telemedicine:

CISCO and Rotary donated a fully functional telemedicine solution that opened in February 2014.
Cloud server to share echocardiograms and other medical records donated by LifeImage and Tricefy.

Research:

Ground-breaking research in Rheumatic Heart Disease by joint Children’s National/Uganda Heart Institute team, led by Drs. Andrea Beaton and Emmy Okello with the recent establishment of the RHD research collaboration unit.
- First of over 100 papers published in Circulation in June 2012
- American Heart Association top 10 research development for 2012
- Research faculty member funded for three years to do ongoing research
To date over 150,000 children screened for RHD

Performance improvement:

Uganda is the only African country to participate in an international PI database that includes monthly webinars and involves six continents.

Repair/maintenance of technology:

Including echocardiography machines, OR, and ICU equipment. Children’s National biomedical engineer, Ozzie Rivera is the leader of this program.

Facilitating donation of medical equipment:

Multiple vendors have participated.

Meeting with government officials:

We have built major government support, which is key to the sustainability of the surgical and catheterization program.
- Met with Ugandan President Yoweri Musevini in 2007. He committed over $1 million.
- Met with First Lady Janet Musevini on four occasions along with Prime Minister and Minister of Health.
- Ministers of Health, Education, and Communication.
- US and Ugandan Ambassadors; medical diplomacy is attractive to US Ambassadors.

Media:

Coverage by multiple US and Ugandan media outlets, Children’s National Blog.

Uganda

Where We Help

Dr. Sable has visited Uganda over 40 times with medical missions to Mulago Hospital since 2003; this includes 18 open heart surgery and cardiac catheterization missions at the Uganda Heart Institute focused on skill transfer and sustainability.

The goals have been to perform heart surgery with the Ugandan medical team, diagnose children with heart disease, facilitate treatment of these children abroad when needed, conduct collaborative research to reduce the burden of Rheumatic Heart Disease, and, most importantly, build a sustainable cardiac surgery program in Uganda through education, skill transfer, donation of technology, patient care, and meetings with hospital and government officials.

Ongoing education and advancement of the cardiovascular program are critical to prevent the “brain drain” of young physicians and nurses who are being trained.

The Uganda Heart Institute has met many of the requirements to move forward, so our goal is to have a sustainable and independent heart surgery program within five years in Uganda. The way forward includes sponsoring up to four missions per year and the Ugandan heart surgery and catheterization teams performing, in between missions, at least ten procedures per week with advancing levels of complexity.

We also want to continue to collaborate to reduce the burden of Rheumatic Heart Disease and care for children abroad who have heart defects that cannot be treated in Uganda.

Morocco

There are an estimated 4,000 – 5,000 children in Morocco in need of cardiac intervention. The heart surgery program in Marrakech, led by Professor Drissi Boumzebra has established itself as a beacon of hope for the children of Morocco and surrounding countries. It is our hope and expectation that we can continue our longstanding collaboration with Pr. Boumzebra and his team to help support the great work that they are carrying out.

We have built an association of charitable organizations to improve health care for the children of Morocco, focusing on collaborating with clinical teams in Rabat and Marrakech. In 2005, the Mosaic Foundation awarded the Children’s National Telemedicine program a grant to support the establishment of an international pediatric tele-education network between Children’s National and Morocco that has continued for almost 20 years. Intelsat has donated satellite dishes and time to support this work. Mrs. Felicia Mekouar, the wife of former Moroccan Ambassador Aziz Mekouar, was instrumental in securing this award and stewardship of its implementation.