On Friday, a six-year-old girl with the special name Shalom (Peace) from the African country of Malawi stood on the stage at the Israeli President’s Residence in Jerusalem. The entire audience rose and applauded her. Shalom is the 9,000th patient of the aid organization “Save a Child’s Heart”, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. It is the story of a journey that began with a mother’s concern for her daughter and led to an encounter with a medical delegation and a life-saving heart operation in Israel.
Shalom was very excited at the event and was warmly embraced by President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal. She is one of six children in her family and has a twin sister. From an early age, her mother Nelsi noticed that Shalom breathed differently from her sister, tired quickly, and showed signs of a bluish discoloration of the skin. At the age of one year and seven months, she was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called “Tetralogy of Fallot”, which impairs the body’s oxygen supply.
The condition also affected her everyday life as a child. Due to her health, her school enrollment was delayed by one year: Shalom attends first grade, while her twin sister is already in second grade.
For the family’s mother, Nelsi, the diagnosis triggered deep fear. She had lost her own mother to heart disease and feared a similar fate for her daughter. The turning point came when a medical delegation from “Save a Child’s Heart” visited the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Malawi. There, the family learned of the possibility of treatment. Shalom and her mother later came to Wolfson Hospital in Holon, where the girl received a life-saving heart operation.
See also: Children from Malawi arrive in Israel for life-saving heart treatment
Herzog said at the moving event: “‘Save a Child’s Heart’ is an extraordinary Israeli humanitarian organization that embodies a triumph of goodness and humanity. Through their amazing work, they prove that human compassion, the values that connect us, and the most fundamental desire to see our children healthy and alive transcend all boundaries of language, nationality, religion, origin, history, and culture. The most compelling proof of the power of human empathy are the hundreds of girls and boys and their families from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority, who were received with open arms and received life-saving treatment at the Sylvan Adams Children’s Hospital of the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. The wonderful work of ‘Save a Child’s Heart’ undoubtedly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Six-year-old Shalom from Malawi at the event at the Israeli President’s residence in Jerusalem. She is the 9,000th patient of the aid organization “Save a Child’s Heart.” Photo: Tomer Neuberg/Save a Child’s Heart.
Dr. Hagai Dekel, who was part of Shalom’s surgical team, describes the encounters with the children who come to Israel for treatment: “It is amazing to see her and the other children who come to us in Holon. Some of them come without their parents, others get to fly for the first time in their lives. They come to a foreign country with many fears, undergo heart surgery, and return home healthy and happy.”
For the staff of “Save a Child’s Heart” and its tens of thousands of volunteers, the 9,000th patient is not simply a number. Behind that number stands a charming, smiling six-year-old girl with a twin sister and a family waiting for her at home.
“Save a Child’s Heart” is an aid organization founded in 1995 by a pediatric heart surgeon with big dreams and great courage: the late Dr. Ami Cohen. Since then, Israeli medical teams have provided life-saving treatments to children from 75 developing countries in the Middle East, Africa, the Far East, South America, and other regions. In these countries, children had insufficient access to modern medical care.
All medical treatments, including heart surgeries and cardiac catheterization procedures at the Wolfson Medical Center, both in Israel and through humanitarian missions worldwide, are fully funded by the organization. There are no costs whatsoever for the families of the infants and children. In addition, the organization runs a long-term medical training program (Fellowship) aimed at strengthening pediatric cardiology in the children’s home countries.
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