Kimmel issues health- care appeal after son’s ordeal
LOS ANGELES — A tearful Jimmy Kimmel turned his monologue on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Monday into an emotional recounting of his newborn son’s open-heart surgery — and a plea that all American families get the life-saving medical care they need.
Several hours after his wife, Molly, gave birth to William John on April 21, a nurse at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center alerted the couple and doctors to the baby’s purple-ish color, signifying a lack of oxygen, the host said.
A test showed Kimmel’s son had a birth defect called tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia — a hole in the wall separating the right and left sides of the heart and a blocked pulmonary valve, Kimmel said. The baby, nicknamed Billy, was taken to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles to undergo surgery to open the valve.
“The longest three hours of my life,” Kimmel said.
Billy will have another open-heart surgery within six months to repair the hole and then a third procedure when he’s a young teen, but he came home six days after the surgery and is “doing great,” Kimmel said.
After thanking by name the nurses, doctors and staff members at the hospitals, along with his colleagues and friends — “Even that (expletive) Matt Damon sent flowers,” Kimmel said of his faux rival — the comedian gave an impassioned speech on health care.
He criticized President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health and praised Congress for instead calling for increased funding.
“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make,” Kimmel said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?
“We need to take care of each other,” Kimmel said.