3-month project chair of medical group Burjeel Holdings, helped children from conflict zones and disadvantaged backgrounds LONDON: A three-month charitable project launched by an Abu Dhabi businessman on Jan. 1 this year has provided life-saving operations for 50 children with complex congenital heart diseases. Shamsheer Vayalil, chairperson of medical group Burjeel Holdings, set up the Golden Heart Initiative to help children from conflict zones and disadvantaged backgrounds in several countries. It enlisted leading medical experts to perform critical surgeries in public and private healthcare facilities across Tunisia, Egypt and India. Its work primarily focused on helping children from places affected by conflict, including Senegal, Libya and Tunisia, and underprivileged families from Egypt and India. One significant hurdle the initiative faced was stringent travel restrictions in many places that made it challenging to move children and their families from conflict zones to the hospitals that could carry out the surgeries they needed. It worked closely with a number of agencies to secure the special travel permissions that were required. And in places such as India, the initiative worked closely with government departments and agencies to provide surgeries that were beyond the financial reach of many families as they were not covered by existing healthcare schemes. Some of the children who benefited from the initiative were as young as 2 months old, with severe conditions such as: aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the aortic valve that impedes blood flow; tetralogy of Fallot, which disrupts normal heart blood flow; and atrioventricular canal defect, in which a hole in the heart’s chamber walls results in valve problems. Dr. Tarig Ali Elhassan, a cardiac surgeon and leader of the initiative’s medical assessment board, spoke of his pride in the ability of the medical teams involved with the initiative to provide top-tier medical treatment to children. “We feel proud to support these children in the time of their need with world-class treatment,” he said. “After announcing the initiative, we received numerous requests from different parts of the world. We thoroughly reviewed each medical record and shortlisted the candidates based on the severity of their condition and the guidelines of the initiative. “Later, we brought together global experts in the field to perform the surgeries. We also made arrangements to ease transportation challenges. Everything was done within three months, which we consider a great feat.”