PALESTINE CHILDREN'S RELIEF FUND

For the Love of Ahmed

In the early months of 2003, the PCRF sponsored one-year-old Ahmed Hammami to travel to Washington, D.C. for life saving heart surgery at the Children's National Medical Center. Leaving his home in the West Bank town of Nablus, Ahmed came to Washington to have his heart repaired of a combination of genetic defects. In association with the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, Save A Child's Heart Foundation, and Rotary Gift of Life, the PCRF arranged for Ahmed's travel, accommodations in the U.S., and heart surgery at the Children’s Hospital.

Members of the local Washington, D.C. community provided an outpouring of support to Ahmed and his mother during their stay -- lending a hand with everything from transportation, housing, translation, and grocery visits. The PCRF-DC committee wishes to extend its great appreciation for all those who reached out to help the family during this trying time.

Below are two news stories with further details about Ahmed. A CBS news feature may be viewed online at the

following site:
http://www.wusatv9.com/health/health_article.asp?storyid=15456

Palestinian Boy Gets Hope
By Joann Kelly
The Northern Virginia Journal, March 4, 2003

Thirteen-month-old Ahmed Hammami sits quietly on a table at the Ronald McDonald House near Children's National Medical Center in Washington, his large, brown eyes gazing thoughtfull about the room.

Snow is falling outside and the Palestinian boy's mother watches nearby as Daniel Quinn, an Arlington County social worker, spoon-feeds him from a jar of baby food.

After several weeks of battling the flu, Ahmed is healthy and doctors are saying they will be able to fix his heart -- and save his life -- if he remains well enough to undergo surgery on Friday.

This is the moment his mother, Randa, has been fighting for since she discovered a year ago her child has "blue baby syndrome," a condition in which four heart defects occur simultaneously.

In the United States, 99 percent of babies born with the condition, officially known as Tetralogy of Fallot, are cured within a year.

But the Hammamis live in the West Bank, where poverty and the ongoing confict between Israel and the Palestinians easily can mean a death sentence for a child with medical needs like Ahmed.

There are no pediatric surgical treatment centers in the Palestinian territories and it is impossible for Palestinians to go to Tel Aviv in Israel to be treated there, said workers with the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

Ahmed Hammami with his cardiac surgeon Dr. Gregory DiRusso (left) and cardiologist Dr. Gerard Martin (right) at a farewell gathering hosted by Children's Hospital on the day of Ahmed's discharge. Drs. DiRusso and Martin donated their services to treat Ahmed for a life-threatening heart disease called Tetralogy of Fallot. Today, Ahmed is healthy and back home in Nablus.

Randa Hammami, 29, decided she wouldn't let that stop her from obtaining the treatment needed to keep her son alive.

"Because of my son, it makes me do the impossible," she said last week. "When you have a problem like this you make a road through a mountain to go wherever you want to go."

She is being helped along that road by the local chapter of the PCRF, which donated the money for the Hammamis' plane tickets and their stay in the United States. They worked with the Larry King Cardiac Foundation and Save A Child's Heart Foundation to finance Ahmed's surgery.

Although the physicians will be working for free, the organizations needed to pay for the hospital's operating costs, said Dr. Gerard Martin, chief of cardiology at Children's Hospital, where the surgery will be performed.

Martin said he expects the operation to go smoothly. He said Children's Hospital has a nearly 100 percent success rate performing the procedure on children in Ahmed's age group.

"He has got a large hole in his heart and a blockage in the blood vessel that leads to the lungs," Martin said. "We will close the hole and open the blockage."

The surgery should take three to four hours, he said.

Working with teams both in the Palestinian territories and Washington, the PCRF helped coordinate every aspect of the trip.

Volunteers like Quinn have found temporary housing for Hammami, her son and her sister, at the Ronald McDonald House and with several Northern Virginia families for a month's recuperation time after the surgery.

Wuinn and another Arlington County schools employee, Roula Bordcosh, helped found the local PCRF chapter last year. Ahmed is the second child to be officially sponsored by the chapter.

His mother said she immediately turned to the group for help with Ahmed because her first son, who is now a healthy 3-year-old, suffered from the same disease and also was treated with help from the PCRF.

Her son's dire condition, and her family's economic limits, again qualified her.

But qualifying is one thing, and getting out of the West Bank is another. It was Hammami's determination to save her son that made the difference between her case and thousands of others in her homeland.

"For every Ahmed there are thousands who can't come here," Quinn said.

"We can only help those who want it the most," he added.

Her son in hand, Hammami underwent an odyssey to win their passage out of the war-torn area. It took her five tries to successfully pass through a series of five Israeli checkpoints, just to reach Jerusalem to obtain the visa she needed to come to the United States.

She had to wait up to four hours at each checkpoint. As she waited, she saw people beaten or turned back.

She was scared but kept going. "I am thinking just to get through the checkpoints with my son," Hammami said.

Hammami said she had more luck than most because she had a sick son with her. Still, she said, she was unable to pass through the fourth checkpoint to Jerusalem until an ambulance could take them through.

Then there was the long trip from her hometown of Nablus to the international airport to Jordan -- and a series of additional checkpoints. That process was so unpredictable that the PCRF reserved several tickets on different days in her name.

Her sister, Khuloud, came with her because Hammami has a thyroid problem that makes travel alone dangerous. Khuloud's ticket was not covered by PCR; instead, family members and friends pooled their resources to sponsor her trip here.

The three finally arrived at Dulles International three weeks ago.

Ahmed's surgery, originally scheduled for last Friday, was postponed after he contracted the flu. As she stays inside and waits for her son to gather strength, Hammami can't help but tell fellow residents at the Ronald McDonald House about how lucky they are.

"I feel freedom because I don't have this thing at home," she said. "It's nice. The people here treat me like a human being and not like an animal like in my country."

At home, she said, her neighborhood was under a 24-hour curfew until three months ago. Anyone who went outside ran the risk of being shot.

"It's like a big prison and the kids can't go to their schools and we can't move at all," she said. "If you move outside your house, they will shoot you. They don't discriminate."

But now her most preoccupying concern is with her son. He is scheduled for a checkup today and possibly a catheterization on Wednesday.

"I am afraid, I am so nervous but I think the surgery will be OK because his case is better than his brother," she said. "I have hope."

Toddler Heart Patient Healed
By Joann Kelly
The Northern Virginia Journal, Aoril 4, 2003

Randa Hammami beams as she watches her child, Ahmed, play in the warm April sun outside the Ronald McDonald House in Washington.

The odyssey that took her from Nablus, her hometown in the West Bank, to this northeast District neighborhood has already repaid her for all her troubles.

It's been three weeks since 14-month-old Ahmed underwent open heart surgery at the nearby Children's National Medical Center, and he already is a changed boy.

A mischevious smile has replaced a shy, quiet demeanor and the Palestinian boy now actively engages with the world around him, namely people and toys.

Even his color has changed, from a bluish pallor to a rosy complexion.

The operation to cure Ahmed of "blue baby syndrome," officially known as Tetralogy of Fallot, was a medical success. Surgeons closed a hole in his heart and unclogged another blood vessel with no complications.

"Everything was very good," Hammami said Wednesday. "It was like a dream. I am so happy."

So are volunteers at the Washington, D.C. area chapter of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, which paid for Randa's air travel and coordinated her stay in the United States. They also recruited help from the Larry King Cardiac Foundation and Save A Child's Heart Foundation, which funded Ahmed's surgery.

Daniel Quinn, a social worker with Arlington County schools, said he and his fellow volunteers camped out at the hospital the day of Ahmed's surgery.

"We stayed from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m. when we were able to see him," Quinn said. "We just sort of took over the waiting room in intensive care."

Now that doctors have finally declared Ahmed strong enough to weather the journey home, everyone's thoughts are on the difficult times ahead for Hammami and her son as they return to the West Bank, where Nablus is under Israeli occupation.

"There is certainly a sense of joy that Ahmed's heart has been fixed, but it is going to be difficult for us to say goodbye, given what he is going back to," Quinn said. "We are frantically trying to have ways to have some sense of security that it will all go well."

Quinn's group is having a letter written in Hebrew for Hammami to show to Israeli guards at the several checkpoints she will have to pass through.

Once she lands in Jordan, Hammami will have to pass through a Jordanian checkpoint, then the four Israeli checkpoints along the Allenby Bridge, which straddles the border between Jordan and the West Bank.

Each checkpoint could take hours to pass, and Hammami is worried about the extra suitcases she is bringing back. One is full of donated toys for Ahmed. Then there is Ahmed himself, quite a different creature from the docile baby she carted through checkpoints on the way out.

Hammami is concerned this could cause problems with the guards.

"He's not calm like before," Hammami said. "He is shouting all the time."

At the final checkpoint, the one entryway into Nablus, she will see her family, who all will be there to greet her, she said. "I will cry because I miss everybody there," Hammami said.

Nablus was a beautiful city before the second Intifada began, she said. Now, the only thing she likes to look at are the mountains, which rise above the devastation. She can see them from her apartment window in Nablus, she said.

If she could bring her family, Hammami confesses, she would stay here. Here, there are no checkpoints and no curfews. No fear that the war with Iraq will cause the world to turn a blind eye to the West Bank.

"Here, you have easily a chance for everything," Hammami said.She is scheduled to leave next week, but not before throwing a thank-you party for her friends she made here through the PCRF.

Hammami was the second case sponsored by the local chapter of the PCRF, and Quinn said the group is actively working on bringing more children to the area for life-saving operations.

For her part, Hammami knows what she will tell Ahmed when he is old enough to ask questions about the long scar on his chest.

"I will tell him that a lot of good people helped you to have a chance to live."