Ethiopian children get a new lease of life thanks to Rotary

The latest beneficiaries of a mega Rotary project in ­Bengaluru to mend little hearts are a group of children from Ethiopia. They have been helped through the Rotary Needy Heart Foundation (RNHF) based in Bengaluru, which is an offshoot of the Needy Heart Foundation (NHF) and was set up in 2021 by past president of RC Bangalore Indiranagar O P Khanna, whose dream was to provide a new lease of life to children and adults from economically disadvantaged families. Together, the RNHF and NHF have helped mend the hearts of over 12,000 children and adults since 2001.

PDG Rajendra Rai (third from L) and past president of RC Bangalore Midtown Atul Kaushal (second from R) with the first batch of Ethiopian children and their care givers on their arrival at Bengaluru airport.

Khanna started the NHF in 2001 and it was not a Rotary project at that time. Non-Rotarians and a few doctors from the Manipal Hospital were giving money to help with the operations. In 2007–08 when Rajendra Rai was the district governor of the undivided RID 3190, under his leadership, for the first time, the district applied for a matching grant for heart surgeries and with the help of those funds 48 children suffering from heart ailments were operated through Rotary. “Past trustee from Pakistan Aziz Memon was my batchmate, and he sent 12 needy children from Pakistan for heart surgery. In 2021 some of us felt that we should start a separate Foundation to take care of heart surgeries for the disadvantaged through Rotary, and hence the RNHF was started,” says Rai, who is the managing trustee of the RNHF.

When Shekhar Mehta was RI President in 2021–22, “he requested us in the RNHF to organise heart surgery free of cost to a few children from Ethiopia, as over 400 children see premature death every year in this African country due to lack of medical facilities and the limited capacity in their hospitals to perform open heart surgeries,” he adds.

It was a proud moment for the Rotarians when Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned in his recent Mann ki Baat episode about how Indian doctors and hospitals were performing open heart surgeries on Ethiopian children born with congenital heart diseases.

The Rotarians associated with the Foundation found this a challenge as there is no government support for conducting heart surgeries on foreign children in Indian hospitals. “This was a major challenge as the funds required were much larger than that needed for local children, as there are government schemes available for the medical treatment of poor Indians. But as happens in all the humanitarian projects done by Rotary over the years, if the intentions are good the magic of Rotary steps in to bring resources,” he smiles.

Giving a recap of this massive project, he says that in the undivided RID 3190, since 2001 the NHF and RNHF (2021), along with many Rotary clubs, have helped to do free heart surgery on over 12,000 disadvantaged children and adults who were the breadwinners in their families and were suffering from various heart ailments. The children mostly had congenital heart abnormalities which could be set right only through open heart operation.

PP Kaushal (L) and philanthropist Bimal Desai (R), member of RC Bangalore Midtown, with beneficiaries from Ethiopia.

These surgeries were undertaken mainly in three designated hospitals in Bengaluru — Jayadeva ­Hospital, which is a government hospital, Manipal Hospital and the Narayana Hrudayalya. In Rotary year 2023–24, the RNHF has helped around 1,044 children and adults from disadvantaged families to get free heart surgery, he adds.

In addition to this number, the NHF and RNHF have also helped around 300 foreign children suffering from congenital heart diseases from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, ­Ethiopia, Nepal etc.

Reverting to the latest batch of children from Ethiopia who were helped by Bengaluru’s Rotarians to get their sick hearts mended, it was a proud moment for the Rotarians when Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned in his recent Mann ki Baat episode about how Indian doctors and hospitals were performing open heart surgeries on Ethiopian children born with congenital heart diseases. “Indian NRIs in Ethiopia are helping such children get operated in Indian hospitals so that they can live happily after that. And if the family doesn’t have the resources to travel to India, even that is being arranged for them free of cost,” he said.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister did not mention Rotary, but while he was speaking the visual content running through the live telecast beamed pictures of Rotarians in Bengaluru including PDG Rai, receiving the Ethiopian children and their parents at the airport, accompanying them to the hospital, etc. Rai says Rotary missed out on such an important PR moment probably because the Indian embassy in Ethiopia which had briefed the PMO about this heart surgery project must have focused on the NRI Rajiv Sharma, who does a lot of background work in Ethiopia in coordination with our embassy to identify the children, coordinate with the doctors and hospitals there to organise the medical records, get necessary permissions, and so on.

But the pictures streamed on the show left no doubt about who or what the PM was referring to. “Anyway, it came as a pleasant surprise to us; Rajiv was in India and he alerted us about it, and we were able to see the episode,” says Rai.

PDG Rai with RC Bangalore Midtown president Palani Loganathan (fourth from R) and Rotary Bangalore West president Yogesh Pachisia (R).

Returning to the financial challenges posed in arranging funds for the operation of the 20 Ethiopian children, the hospitals where the surgery is done charge around ₹1.15 to 1.5 lakh depending on how complicated the surgery is. It’s easier when Indian citizens — both children and adults — are concerned; “for example, last year, we did 1,044 heart operations on Indian patients. Of the money required for each patient, ₹90,000 is given by the state government, and we give on an average around ₹35,000 to the hospital, and the cost is covered. But Ethiopians, or any other foreigners, are not eligible for government grants, so we had to raise the money,” he says.

So he requested past presidents of RC Bangalore Midtown F R ­Sanghvi and Atul Kaushal and they sponsored the total amount of ₹1.5 lakh required per operation for some of the children. But then another member of this club, Bimal Desai, when told about the need for funding four more Ethiopian children, “was willing to sponsor all the 20 children! We had committed to PRIP Shekhar Mehta that under this project we would organise the heart surgeries of 20 Ethiopian children. I’d like to thank president Palani Loganathan for their club’s continued support.” Every year, under this project, over 1,000 heart surgeries of Indian children and adults are done in the three hospitals mentioned above, he adds.

We had committed to PRIP Shekhar Mehta that under this project we would organise the heart surgeries of 20 Ethiopian children. So far, we have taken care of the heart surgeries of 18 Ethiopian children in four batches.

So far, the Rotarians have taken care of the heart surgeries of 18 Ethiopian children in four batches at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Science and Research in Bengaluru. These include 10 girls and 8 boys and the youngest child is five-year-old and the eldest 19 years. The then director of Jayadeva Hospital, Dr Manjunath, now a member of parliament from Karnataka, “has always extended great support to RNHF in executing this project during more than a ­decade of our association.” The children, who started coming in small batches from Dec 2022 with the latest batch of four children coming in Dec 2024, and their parents, were flown in from Addis Ababa to Bengaluru free of cost by Ethiopian Airlines. In Ethiopia, Rajeev Sharma, president of RC Addis Ababa Bole, RID 7212, has coordinated with the RNHF, the Indian embassy in Addis Ababa and Ethiopian Airlines in organising the seamless travel of the Ethiopians in the last two years. “We would like to thank DG Alex Nyaga and DG Azeb Asra, IPDG Leonard Itahu and DG Joe Kamau, all from RID 7212, for their help and patronage, but for which this project would not have been ­possible,” adds Rai.

Ethiopian children with their parents.

But, as always happens in international projects, something can go wrong at the last moment and it did this time too. There was a lot of drama and many anxious moments when one batch of Ethiopians arrived. The Rotarians picked them up from the airport and dropped them to the hospital, only to find that the rules in Ethiopia had changed. Normally, when the patients fly in, the Jayadeva Hospital authorities give clearance. But the new rules put the onus of clearance on the Ethiopians! After a huge flurry and burning the midnight oil, and after 4–5 days, the clearance came and the operations were done successfully.

Now, says Rai, PRIP Mehta has referred two more children with heart problems from Ghana and Rtn Desai, who is a businessman, is ready to support the operations on four more children.

He adds that Rotary clubs in both RID 3191 and 3192 have also been conducting heart surgeries on children with CHD through global grants and CSR grants with the assistance of the RNHF. “One of our major partners in this endeavour is the Gift of Life, US, and its chairman PDG Ravi Bhooplapur, who is an AKS member. Rotary Bangalore West and Rotary Bangalore Indiranagar have executed many GG projects for paediatric heart surgeries in collaboration with the Gift of Life, thanks to contributions from Bhooplapur and his home club, RC Gold Coast Lake ­Success in RID 7255.

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