STATE, ISRAEL TO COOPERATE ON CHILDREN'S HEART MATTERS

GOVERNMENT has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel's Save a Child's Heart (SACH) to provide the National Heart Hospital in Lusaka with adequately trained manpower and equipment.

The five-year agreement between the Ministry of Health and SACH will also benefit up to 30 children a year in Israel as well as continue offering training for experts in Israel.

SACH is an Israeli humanitarian organisation working internationally to save lives of children in countries where access to paediatric cardiac care is either inadequate or nonexistent.

SACH executive director Simon Fisher says emphasis is on investing jointly at the National Heart Hospital through the Israel-trained Zambian team returning in 2023. “The Ministry of Health will ensure the team has all equipment and consumables necessary for the Zambian team to be able to treat at least 100 children locally every year and growing in number and complexity with the support of incoming SACH medical teams from Israel, Tanzania and other SACH partners from around the world,” Mr Fisher said yesterday after signing the MoU at the Ministry of Health headquarters in Lusaka. Mr Fisher said the MoU’s objective is that within 10 years, Zambia should be self-sufficient and able to treat all its children suffering from heart diseases.

“I believe this MoU is another very important step in strengthening the relationship between Zambia and Israel and our people for the benefit of our children - our future,” he said

“I wanted to add that our future plans include the return of Dr Ziwa to Zambia in March 2023 and bringing another surgeon to Israel for training. We will continue the training of the Zambian team in Israel and Zambian nurses will be trained in Tanzania by the local team who were trained in the past by Save a Child’s Heart in Israel.

In May or June 2023 a Save a Child’s Heart medical team will travel to Zambia to perform open heart surgery together with Dr Ziwa and his team. We plan to recruit additional international partners to assist with the mission with of having the Zambian team work independently within five years and be able to train additional teams locally by themselves.