Changing the life of a child: Catholic hospital’s special program provides life-saving heart surgery for world’s children

Sara Bodenmiller, left, and Dr. Simon Abraham examine the echocardiogram of a child to determine if the child is a good candidate for the life-saving heart surgery that is provided to poor pediatric patients from around the world by the Children’s Heart Center at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

Her smile and her story still linger in his thoughts as Dr. Simon Abraham looks at the photographs on the wall inside the medical clinic at the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital.

The child from Kosovo had a heart defect when she and her mother were flown to Indianapolis as part of the hospital’s efforts to provide life-saving heart surgery for pediatric patients from poor countries around the world.

“She was 11 months old, but she was the size of a 3-month-old,” Abraham recalls. “Usually, we try to help children where we can fix the problem in one operation, but she required two surgeries. Her heart had gotten so big. We repaired both heart defects, and she was in the hospital for two to three weeks.

“We received a picture of her about two years later. It showed how much she had grown and how good she looked. She probably wouldn’t have survived without the operations.”

A sense of humility fills Abraham’s voice as he recalls the girl and other children who have benefited from the program at the hospital’s Children’s Heart Center.

“We have done operations for 90 kids since we started,” he says. “They have been from all over the place—Kosovo, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Mongolia. The last two were from Uganda. It’s a good thing for us to do.”

Transforming the life of a child

Started in 2000, the program reflects the continuing commitment by St. Vincent Health to live up to the values that have marked the Daughters of Charity’s approach to health care ever since four religious sisters arrived in Indianapolis in 1881.

“From St. Vincent’s, especially among the Daughters, it’s really walking the talk,” Abraham says. “Providing charity care is something they’re very serious about. They saw this approach to pediatric heart care as within their mission. They do a lot of charity care locally, and they saw this as a way to extend it to an international level.”

Those international life-saving efforts are also part of the Children’s Heart Project, a program run by Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization. The Children’s Heart Project works with leading hospitals across the United States to provide surgery for children who live in countries where the required medical expertise and equipment are not available.

The Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent does more charity care heart surgeries than any other hospital in the Children’s Heart Project. The project identifies patients from poor countries who need heart surgeries. Samaritan’s Purse also provides plane fare and visas for the patient, a parent and an interpreter.

“The children are usually seen by a visiting cardiologist in a number of countries,” Abraham explains. “We’re sent a package that comes with a medical history and an echocardiogram of two or three children. We usually accept two children at a time from the same location. We try to choose patients that we think will get a significant improvement in their life expectancy.”

The resulting change in the children is usually dramatic from when they first arrive at the hospital, according to Sara Bodenmiller, the coordinator of the international pediatric heart surgery program.

“Some of these children who come over, their color is blue,” says Bodenmiller, a pediatric nurse practitioner. “They can’t walk across the room without getting tired. To watch the transformation of that child after surgery or five or six weeks later when they’re going home, you wouldn’t recognize the child. They’re pink, they’re smiling and they’re playing.”

Helping the children is a team effort that flows through the hospital and even into the community. Host families provide a place to stay for the child and the parent.

“The fact that our host families open their homes to these strangers shows how thoughtful people can be to one another,” Bodenmiller says.

“I’m so pleased that St. Vincent has been willing to continue its commitment to this international outreach. There are so many children in need throughout the world. Although we’re only able to help a small portion, even to be able to do that is wonderful.”

So is the response from the parents of the young patients.

Gifts of music, trust and joy

The expressions of gratitude from parents for their children’s surgeries have come in different ways. Abraham received a couple of musical instruments after he helped children from Mongolia.

“I also have at home this incredible Mongolian robe that they gave me,” he says.

Still, he insists that the best gift that he receives is the trust of the parents who place their children’s care in his hands.

“It’s usually the mothers who come with their children,” Abraham says. “The relationship between a mother and a child is pretty universal. Obviously, they know they’re coming here because their child is sick. It’s amazing they put so much faith in the hospital, in the operating room team and even me.

“They basically need to trust someone who is going to make things better for their child, and they do. Obviously, there’s great anxiety until they see their child after the surgery. Then there’s relief. And joy.”

In the years that follow, letters arrive at the hospital with photographs of the former patients from across the globe. The pictures fill a scrapbook and the walls of the clinic.

“The walls of our office are lined with these photos,” Abraham says. “That’s great. Some of these kids are probably teenagers now.

“It does show what a faith organization can do. It’s one of the big reasons I’m here.” †