If a video doesn't play continuously, it may be due to your connection speed. You'll need a broadband connection with at least 500+Kbps for the best viewing experience.

Another possible reason for choppy video playback is that our servers are experiencing high traffic. If this is the case, there's not much you can do. However, we are continuously adding servers to keep up with demand and improve your experience on our site.

It's also possible that your video download speed is slow or inconsistent. In this case, you can try pausing the video until the entire stream is downloaded and then playing the video. Occasionally, an incomplete copy of a video can get stuck in your cache and never fully download. You can re-attempt the download by clearing your browser's cache.

Simply stated, ICHF needs large renewal grants to fund the surgeries and local developing country medical staff.  Additionally, despite the fact we work diligently to gather donations and use volunteers for medical trips, there are expenses incurred as with any business or non-profit organization.  These include staff salaries, office operations maintenance ,and mission related expenses such as supplies shipping and occasionally buying medical supplies and medication.

The only limitation in the number of children's lives we can save is the ability to fund more trips to perform surgeries and train local medical teams.

ICHF has over 1200 medical professionals who are registered and certified to travel and teach with our medical staff.

Every day. On the average we receive two to five requests for services each day from developing countries throughout the  world.

All ICHF volunteers, including the medical volunteers are not paid for their work with ICHF. This includes the doctors, nurses and others who make up a medical team. Team members often use their vacation time.  In some cases, employers grant time off for humanitarian efforts. However, the ICHF pays medical team members' trip travel and living expenses such as airfare, food and lodging.

80% of ICHF volunteers make more than one trip.  Many continually make trips over a number of years.  The satisfaction of saving children, receiving the smiles and endless gratitude of the children and their parents, and training local medical teams to spread the success is compensation enough.

The ICHF fiscal year runs from July through June. 

For the 2006-2007 year, ICHF completed 18 trips.  In 2007-2008, 20 trips were completed.  We increased to 26 trips in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.  In the present fiscal year, we have projected to complete 32 surgical mission trips.  As ICHF expands its capacity to manage more trips, the number of trips will increase.

In developing countries the cost of an ICHF  heart surgery vary based upon:

• Size of the medical team
• Lodging for the medical team members
• Transportation for medical team members
• Medical supplies and equipment that has been donated for a trip

However, the typical mission trip costs around $40,000, assuming medical supplies are donated. During a two week trip the medical team typically operates on 20 children.  This calculates to an average cost of $2,000 per child.  If you compare this to the average cost of one surgery in the US ($30,000), ICHF surgeries are 85% less expensive.