On estimate 500,000 children are born every year with congenital malformation of the heart and great blood vessels. With the lack of readily accessible medical and surgical care, at least half of them are unlikely to complete the first year of life, while the others will encounter serious problems in growth and psychosomatic development while continuing to be handicapped in breathing and/or circulation.
Paediatric heart surgery concerns the correction of congenital heart disease from birth on. It is widely practised in the so-called industrial world, where small children with heart disease undergo operations and are, in the majority of cases, restored to a life that can be considered the next best thing to normal.
However in the poor countries the situation is much more alarming; a number of factors - cultural, structural, political and above all economic - have prevented the expansion of an adequate health assistance. This becomes even more evident in the case of paediatric heart surgery which requires a highly specialized personnel and a dedicated organization involving high costs for implementation.
For years many heart surgeons and cardiologists – both Italian and foreign - have been trying to come to grips with these major problems with the help of voluntary aid that organizes “humanitarian” missions offering medical care. This mostly means transferring many little cardiopathic children from these distressed areas for operations in their own
hospitals.