European Heart for Children

Cardiovascular nurses and other health care professionals have been involved in caring for children in various ways. First, many nurses are contributing to prevention of cardiac disease in primary prevention programmes at schools or promoting healthy life style in children in the community. Secondly, a substantial number of nurses are working with children with congenital heart disease in a diagnostic, treatment or follow-up phase. Congenital heart disease is an important issue addressed in the activities of the Council Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professional during the conferences and papers also increasingly addressed in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing [1]. Finally, nurses are often key players in multidisciplinary teams addressing acute and life threatening situations of children and nurses are often vital in humanitarian initiatives around the world. Therefore the ‘European Heart for Children’ (EHC) a new humanitarian initiative of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), will appeal to a lot of nurses. During the annual spring meeting of the CCNAP in Geneva earlier this year ‘European Heart for Children’ was presented and in this editorial we would like to take the opportunity to inform the readership of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing of the need, the process and the form of this initiative. Each year, 1 million children are born with congenital heart diseases, of which only 200,000 have access to proper care [2]. Although a lot of children with congenital heart disease receive appropriate care and treatment, this is mainly applicable in countries where there are adequate health care systems. This obviously is not the case in every ESC member country. The ESC states on its website that today, there are 2 to 4 million children awaiting cardiac surgery. These children need surgical treatment and appropriate care that at this moment is not available to a substantial number of them. The initiative for ‘European Heart for Children’ was taken by Claudia Florio Ferrari, a film director from Italy. When her husband was elected President of the ESC she looked up the ESC website to learn more about the Society, and realised that the ESC was one of the most important professional cardiological societies in the world, representing 52 countries. She knew from travelling for her own profession that many of the countries in transition, represented by the ESC, lacked proper programmes for treating children with congenital heart diseases, and she was very surprised that the ESC did not have a project dedicated to this. Together with other persons within the board of the ESC or closely related, she advanced the idea of starting a humanitarian project for children with congenital heart diseases. Since then they have launched a concrete project during the 2009 ESC Congress in Barcelona. To show that the idea of the EHC is achievable, a mission in Syria has already been performed. During this first mission, that was completed in collaboration “Bambini Cardiopatici nel Mondo” 110 children were visited, 6 operated on in Damascus, and 3 sent to Italy as they need special care. Thereafter, EHC was officially established as a humanitarian non-profit organisation (Fonds de dotation) registered in France under number 01267 in the official associations journal No. 0020 (15/5/2010) and declared in the “Prefecture des Alpes-Maritimes” 23/4/2010. The mission of the EHC is: “To promote knowledge and treatment of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and related disorders in children and young adults in ESC member countries and beyond.” EHC aims to give not only direct support to children who need cardiac surgery, but also aims to invest in the infrastructure needed to help future children. They formulated three steps: the participation in missions, the provision of training grants and the establishment of a specialised centre for CHD. EHC will not conduct missions on its own but provide funds to 3 selected, well established, existing organisations which have proven themselves reliable, efficient and have a long standing history of good local networks. These organisations are: Bambini cardiopatici nel mondo — Dr. A. Frigiola La Chaîne de l'espoir — Dr. A. Deloche Chain of Hope — Prof. Sir M. Yacoub. Training grants will be offered to selected groups of 6–8 physicians, surgeons, interventionists and nurses. The idea is to train these individuals in European Centres of Excellence for 2–3 years so that they can return to their country of origin and run the programme for CHD. The selection criteria of the candidates will be given the utmost attention. Recipients of the grants will have to sign a binding moral clause stating that once they have completed the training they will return to their country to allow completion of the project. The third and final step will be to work towards the establishment of a suitable and efficient unit for treatment of CHD in the selected countries. The help from EHC will consist in economical, political and organisational support for the creation and initial running of the unit. A survey on how CHDs are treated in some of the ESC countries in transition has been conducted. It follows that countries to be immediately assisted are Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Morocco, but others might also be considered. Many Affiliated (and non) National Societies also have urgent needs such as Paraguay and Yemen. Here is what EHC has achieved so far with the €62,270.59 raised in Barcelona from the humanitarian dinner and the selling of merchandise: First mission in Syria, Damascus: 17th–21st April 2009 Second mission in Syria, Damascus: 28th March–1st April 2010. First mission in Morocco, Casablanca: 6th–11th June, 2010. First mission in Aswan, Egypt: 19th–21th June, 2010. One echocardiography machine, donated by Basildon Hospital in the UK which has been sent to the Paediatric Department at the Policlinic in Pristina, Kosovo where a future mission will take place. Two echocardiography machines obtained by Claudia Florio Ferrari as winner of the Gold Medal Corazones con Eco that was kindly supported by Siemens Spain have also been allocated. One has been sent to the Paediatric Cardiology Division at the Ibn Rochd Public Hospital in Casablanca, Morocco and is already fully operational. The other one will be sent to the Cardio Surgery Centre in Aswan, Egypt shortly. Devices kindly donated by Biotronik will be sent to Romania. Children's books. Kindly donated by the Italian publishing house, DeAgostini, will be distributed during each mission. The remaining funds are allocated for training grants to be awarded according to requirements and to the decisions of the EHC Board. So far, 414 children have been examined, 38 operated on and saved and 9 children were brought to Italy for more complex surgery. The EHC is a humanitarian initiative of the European Society of Cardiology which was successfully launched but will need strong support of the members of the ESC and other persons who are interested in improving the lives of children with congenital heart disease. We therefore invite the readers of the ECJN to update your colleagues on this initiative and keep updated on this important work (http://escardio.org/Policy/european-heart-children/).