Health program
1% of the Indian population have heart problems which can be corrected definitively by surgeries. From almost 10 years, Volontariat could operate children, from poor background, having cardiac malformations needing light or severe surgeries. These children came from the families close to Parrainage or were detected during the cardiac camps organized in our premises at regional level.
The cost of these operations cannot be taken on the Budget of Volontariat, 1000 to 6000 Euros, even if the cost of one operation in India is much lower than in Western countries.
At Sri Ramachandra Medical college of Chennai (SRMC), Dr Balakrishnan and his team did, yearly, up to 1000 cardiac operations, half of them on children and infants. Now the Dr Bala , as we call him informally, is operating at Malar Hospital, Chennai and at East Coast Hospital, Pondicherry where he is I/C.
The social and economic back-ground of the family
is an important criterion for our decision to support the surgery (and so find donors!). When it’s possible, the family is sharing a part of the expenses. Helps can be given by the Chief Minister of Puducherry Territory as well as from the Prime Minister of India. Dr Bala and his team operate freely, but the total cost of an operation may be high because surgery needs highly specific and expensive apparatus, one time used, and because of the hospitalisation fees.
On January 2007, Volontariat signed an agreement with La Chaîne de l’Espoir, a French Ngo, specialized in such surgeries, with the result that almost 30 babies and infants were operated during that scheme.
Today the programme of cardiac operations slowed down, due to the poor disponibility of the Volontariat team, so we only operate the children moving close to the organization.
From the beginning of the programme until today, Volontariat and its medical and financial partners realized more than 130 surgeries on a hundred children. We had five deaths only, thanks to the team of Doctors at Chennai and Pondicherry.
