ICHF and Preemptive Love Coalition partner on 'remedy missions'

Tuesday July 26, 2011 08:36:55 AM

“Remedy Missions” Provide Groundbreaking Advancements In Iraqi Medical
Care: American-Led Training Team Performs First-Ever Surgeries &
Training in Iraqʼs South

In 2003, the finest heart hospital in Iraq was looted and burned during the USled
invasion. The US military declared it “beyond repair.” The heart of Iraqʼs cardiac
care was in shambles.

Remedy Missions are a response to this declaration of hopelessness. The Preemptive
Love Coalition (PLC) and its partners, the International Childrenʼs Heart
Foundation and Living Light International, are facilitating a series of surgical
missions that will provide Iraqi medical professionals with much-needed training
and experience so they can get back to saving their childrenʼs lives.

With the help of an international surgical training team, Dr. William Novick performed
two of Iraqʼs first-ever operations (one of which was an extremely complex
arterial switch) and the first Senning procedure to be done in over 10 years.

All this groundbreaking work happened during just one Remedy Mission, and it
took place only eight years after Iraqʼs finest heart hospital was declared “beyond
repair.”

Recent reports claim over 29,000 children are annually turned away from heart
surgery in Baghdad alone, with most of these families unable to afford the cost
of airline tickets to fly their child outside Iraq, let alone the expensive surgery.

These missions put top-notch doctors in an Iraqi childʼs backyard, and each
mission provides an average of 20 surgeries per two-week mission and approximately
5,000 hours of surgical training for local Iraqi doctors and nurses.

Each PLC Remedy Mission puts Iraqʼs pediatric cardiac healthcare program one
step closer toward restoration and offers Americans proof that the situation in
Iraq can get better. Itʼs far from “beyond repair.”

For more info about Remedy Missions and how theyʼre transforming pediatric
cardiac care in Iraq, contact Preemptive Love Coalition's Press Secretary Matt Willingham at
or call +1 806-853-9131.