International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO)

The International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO) was established in 2003 by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) in coordination with many of the international volunteers who we have worked with extensively in providing adult and pediatric cardiac surgery in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The purpose of IPCRO is to serve as the main consulting arm of the PCRF to build the first and only pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine.

The first conference of IPCRO was held in Gent, Belgium under the sponsorship of the first IPCRO chairman and co-founder, Professor Guido Van Nooten. Prof. Van Nooten’s teams have volunteered on over a dozen surgical and cardiology missions to Palestine since 1999, treating hundreds of children. Dozens more kids from Palestine and Iraq were sent to Belgium for open-heart surgery through the PCRF and the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Health (MOH). Prof. Van Nooten served as first chairman of IPCRO from 2003-2004.

The Second IPCRO conference was held in Bergamo, Italy, under the sponsorship of Dr. Giancarlo Crupi. Dr. Crupi has also led over a dozen surgery missions to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem through the PCRF since 1999 and has also treated dozens of children from all over the Middle East at his hospital in Bergamo, Italy.

The third annual meeting of the IPCRO was held in Ramallah, Palestine in December, 2005. It was fully organized and sponsored by the PCRF, and it is also the first time that such a large group of distinguished international doctors joined their colleagues in Palestine to discuss in detail the building an effective pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine, as well as an adult cardiac surgery program in Gaza. The chairman of IPCRO at that time was Dr. Alan Kerr from Greenlane Hospital (ret.) in Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Kerr has led over a dozen surgery missions to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem since 2000 and has treated hundreds of Palestinian children with his own hands.

The 2006 conference in East Jerusalem built upon the previous years’successes, as there is more work than even to do for this unitaddressing the issues relating to a program in Gaza for adult cardiac surgery. The PCRF is the only NGO who has been sending a volunteer adult cardiac surgeon (Dr. Imad Tabry) to Gaza to treat patients with heart disease since the start of the 2nd Palestinian uprising, or Intifada

The success of IPCRO in establishing a functioning pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine has been demonstrated by the fact that in 2007 and again in 2008, 200 sick babies had open-heart surgery in Makassed Hospital each year. While the PCRF sponsors the visiting teams and surgeons, much of the work is being done by the local doctors and nurses in Makassed, which was not the case when the first team was sent to Palestine through the PCRF in 1998. IPCRO is currently headed by Dr. B. Sethia from the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He has led over a dozen surgery missions to Palestine since 1999 and has treated some children in London as well through the PCRF.

Members of the International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO)

Babulal Sethia, M.D. – London, England

Current Chairman of the IPCRO
Dr. B. Sethia is an adult and pediatric cardiac surgeon at Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He formerly worked at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and is a member of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He has led three successful surgical missions to Palestine, and has been active in supporting the efforts to build a program in Makassed Hospital.

Alan Kerr, M.D. – Auckland, New Zealand

Post Chairman of the ICPRO
Dr. Alan Kerr was a senior cardiac surgeon from Green Lane Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand from 1969 to his retirement in 2002. He was head of Department for 7 years and is a clinical professor of surgery in Auckland University. He was made a companion of the New Zealand order of Merit in 1996 and received an award for outstanding contributions to New Zealand Surgery in 2001. He trained in the US under Dr. John Kirklin at the University of Alabama. Throughout his career he has been active in all areas of cardiac vascular and thoracic surgery, including a leading role in introducing coronary artery surgery to New Zealand and participation in heart and lung transplantation. For the past 20 years his primary interest has been building the main pediatric cardiac surgery center in New Zealand. He has been active in training surgeons from developing countries and has taught and operated in Singapore and India. He led several group and solo humanitarian cardiac missions into Palestine.

Mahmoud Nashashibi, M.D. – East Jerusalem

Secretary of the ICPRO
Dr. Mahmoud Nashashibi is a Consultant Pediatrician and Pediatric Cardiologist at Makassed Islamic Charitable Hospital in East Jerusalem, where he has worked since 1992. He is also the head manager at Klalit’s Sick Fund Center in Jerusalem, and a pediatrician at Maccabi’s Sick Fund in Jerusalem since 1997. He was a fellow in pediatric cardiology at the Hospital de Clocheville, Tours & Centre Chirurgical Marine Lanneloungue in Paris until 1992, and a resident at the same institution between 1986-1989. He has been a member of the French Pediatric Cardiology Association since 1995. He has published in several journals and licensed to practice medicine in both Israel and Jordan. He is the only certified pediatric cardiologist working in the occupied territories, and the founder of the Palestinian Pediatric Cardiology Organiation (PPCO).

Ra-id Abdulla, MD – Chicago, IL

Professor Ra-id Abdulla is a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital, Rush Children’s Hospital and Cook County Hospital. He has been a Research Scientist in Genetics at George Washington University, and has worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix and the Medical College in Augusta, Georgia. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Pediatric Cardiology journal and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Council of Congenital Heart Disease of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. He has twice gone to Palestine to screen children with congenital heart disease.

Dr. Alain Chantepie, Pediatric Cardiologist, University of Tours, France

Giancarlo Crupi, M.D. – Bergamo, Italy

Dr. Giacnarlo Crupi is the senior staff surgeon at the Department of Cardiac Surgery and, Surgeon-in-charge of the section of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Ospedali Riuniti at Bergamo, Italy. He is the Past vice-president of the Society of Pediatric Cardiology and the Past vice president of the Section of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery of the Italian Society of Cardiovascular Surgery. He has led several cardiac surgery missions into Palestine for The PCRF, as well as providing charitable surgery on dozens of children at his hospital in Italy.

Katrien Francois, M.D. – Gent, Belgium

Dr. Katrien Francois is a pediatric cardiac surgeon at the University of Gent in Belgium. She is a member of the Belgian and the European Associations for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, and a member of the board of the European Homograft Bank. After her surgical training at the University Hospital of Gent, she spent one year at The Children’s Hospital of Great Ormond Street in London, for a specialist training in Congenital Cardiac Surgery with Prof. Marc de Leval and Prof. J. Stark. She has been active in treating children from Palestine at Gent University Hospital, and has led five humanitarian surgical missions to Palestine over the past several years.

Aijaz Hashemi, M.D. – Loma Linda, CA

Dr. Aijaz Hashemi is the director of pediatric cardiology at Desert Regional Medical Center and an attending pediatric cardiologist in the division of pediatric cardiology at Loma Linda University Medical Center. He specializes in Interventional Cardiac Catheterization and fetal echocardiology. He was a Clinical Fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and Children’s Hospital in Eastern Ontario. He has published widely and is active in supporting the PCRF efforts in Palestine to provide adequate congenital heart care there. He participated in a mission to Palestine in January, 2007.

Adil Husain, MD

Dr. Husain is currently a Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon at the University of Florida College of Medicine/Shands Hospital, Gainesville, FL. Dr. Husain took his clinical cardiothoracic surgical fellowship at the University of North Carolina Hospitals, was a visiting fellow in congenital cardiac surgery at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, and did his general surgery residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinic. He has led two surgery missions to Makassed Hospital in 2007-2008.

Dr. Vincenzo Luisi, M.D. – Massa, Italy

Dr. Vincenzo Luisi is a Vice-Consultant in pediatric cardiac surgeon at Pasquinucci Hospital in Massa, Italy since 2003. He has performed over 1,500 pediatric open-heart operations since he started his career. He has a degree in Medicine and surgeon from the University of Pisa, and received a special qualified in cardiac surgery from Bologna, Italy in 1978.

Phillippe Luxereau, M.D. – Paris, France

Dr. Philippe Luxereau: A Consultant in Adult Cardiology (retired) from Paris, France, he has been involved for the past 20 years in over two dozen humanitarian missions with various French medical teams to the Middle East, Africa and the Far East. He has been actively involved in helping to organize medical missions from France to Palestine for the past 14 years, including in cardiac surgery. He is presently the coordinator for Amnesty International French section for Isreal/Occupied Territories/Palestinian Authority.

Dominique Metras, M.D., Marseille, France

Dominique Metras is Professor of Cardio-Thoracic in the University of Marseille (Fr). Until 2008, he was Chief of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery in La Timone Children’s and Adult Hospitals, including a program of Heart, Lung and Heart-lung Transplant. He is member of several European Societies (French, Spanish, EACTS…) and US Societies (AATS, STS…) He has always been involved in Cooperation (Chief in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Africa for 8 years) and in humanitarian surgery. He has done 5 surgical missions in Makassed.

Ziad Saba, M.D. – Oakland, CA

Dr. Ziad Saba is the chief of pediatric cardiology at Oakland Children’s Hospital, and has been the director of the catheterization lab since 1997. He is a graduate of the Duke University in pediatrics and pediatric cardiology and was a senior clinical fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital in interventional cardiology. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Saba has been on several humanitarian cardiac missions to Palestine since 1999.

Steve Sosebee – Kent, Oh

Steve Sosebee is the President & CEO of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. He has organized, funded and coordinated dozens of cardiac surgery missions to Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. He also has been sending babies with congenital heart disease for open-heart surgery outside of Palestine. He lives half of the year in Palestine running other relief projects for the PCRF.

Imad Tabry, M.D. – Fort Lauderdale, FL

Dr. Imad Tabry is a cardiac surgeon at the Holy Cross Hospital and a consultant in surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. He studied at the French School of Medicine (MD 1970) and was a surgical resident at the American University (1970-74) both in Beirut, Lebanon. His Cardiothoracic residency was at Yale-University (1974-77) and the Mayo Clinic (1977-78) .He was the Assistant Professor and Chief of Section of cardiac surgery at Michigan State University (1978-80). He is currently in private practice of adult cardiac surgery with special emphasis on off-pump coronary bypass surgery. He has led several humanitarian surgical missions into the Gaza Strip over the past few years.

Guido Van Nooten, M.D. Ph.D.– Gent, Belgium

Professor Guido Van Nooten is full professor in surgery at the University of Ghent and head of the cardiac surgery department at the University of Ghent in Belgium. He is an adult and pediatric cardiac surgeon and a member of the European Club of Young Cardiac Surgeons, Le Club Mitral, the Royal Belgian Society for surgery, the European Homograft Bank, the Belgian Society of Transplantation, the International Society of Cardiovascular Surgery, the European Society of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, the Society of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery USA, the American Heart Association, the Belgian Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the current chairman of the IPCRO and has led several humanitarian cardiac missions into Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq over the past several years.