Foundation for the Children of Iran Successfully Completes Treatment for Newest Heart Patient

Foundation for the Children of Iran Successfully Completes Treatment for Newest Heart Patient

December 12, 2008

Complicated congenital heart defect corrected by physicians in Minnesota.

The Foundation for the Children of Iran announced on November 17th, 2008 in Minneapolis that its most recent patient has been successfully treated for a complex heart condition by doctors in Minnesota. The 6-year old boy suffered from a congenital condition which required critical diagnosis and treatment not available in Iran. This condition, if left untreated, would have greatly diminished the child’s quality of life and meant a foreshortened life expectancy.

The child, Ali, was brought to Minnesota in late October after waiting four months for security clearance from the U.S. State Department. Upon arrival, he was immediately seen by doctors David Gremmels and David Overman of The Children’s Heart Clinic of Minneapolis, MN, and open-heart surgery was performed four days later at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics, Minneapolis, MN, by Dr. Overman.

Ali was born with transposition of the great arteries with ventricular septal defects and pulmonary arterial and valvar stenosis. His preliminary diagnostic studies in Iran indicated that he was an excellent candidate for complete repair.

The child’s 5-hour open-heart surgery was an overwhelming success thanks to the remarkable efforts of Dr. Overman and the nurses at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics, in Minneapolis.

“As always, it takes many kind hearts to heal one broken one,” said Foundation director and co-founder Nazie Eftekhari. “Extraordinary thanks go to our team of angels: the gracious and tenacious goodness of a group of compatriots in the United Arab Emirates, lead by an extraordinary ‘friend’of the Foundation who organized a group to care for the patient and his mother while they waited in Dubai to get through the visa process. And most certainly without the staff of the United States Consulate in Dubai, no patient would be healed. They perform an impossible and thankless job.”

She continued that, “Profound gratitude goes to our special volunteers and the many doctors and nurses at Children’s Heart Clinic and Children’s Hospitals and Clinics, Minneapolis. Thanks to them, Ali’s treatment is complete and he no longer suffers from a complex heart defect which affected his ability to play, to sleep, to draw breath. There was grave certainty that without this critical procedure his family would have lost their child unnecessarily to a medical condition that, while serious, was completely reversible. Unfortunately, this kind of treatment is unavailable at present in Iran.”

According to Eftekhari, the Foundation has seen a significant increase in the demand for health care services this past year and several new cases are being considered at present.