From Hebron to Holon, a Palestinian child makes a short, vital journey

[oberliner]

Bundled up and clutching a red water bottle, four-year-old Muath stood outside his Hebron home on Sunday, the first warm day since a blizzard rolled through the Levant. His father, Mahmoud Abu Danash, a stocky man with a few white wisps in his bristly black mustache, set his jaw and steeled himself for a nerve-wracking trip.

Standing by the yellow Palestinian cab at the gate was Dr. Wafiq Othman, a jocular pediatric anesthesiologist who works with Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), an Israeli nonprofit that provides essential cardiac surgery to children from around the world. Muhammed, a nurse from Hebron who works twice weekly at Wolfson, joined as translator.

“It’s a life or death situation,” Abu Danash said, pain evident on his face. He said Muath’s imminent surgery reopened old wounds from the loss of his other two children and his late wife. He voiced thanks for SACH’s gift to save his son’s life and expressed hope that – inshallah, God-willing – all would be alright. He said such charitable works are “essential for any society.”

SACH, the brainchild of late American-Israeli cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Ami Cohen, offers life-saving heart surgery for children from developing countries which lack the know-how, facilities or funds to operate locally. The children are flown into Israel from locations as disparate and distant as Tanzania and the Philippines, and are treated at Wolfson at little or no expense to the patient’s family. According to its official literature, approximately 50% of the 250 children who receive medical care through SACH each year are from the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Iraq and Morocco.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/from-hebron-to-holon-a-palestinian-child-makes-a-short-vital-journey/