PCRF Sets up International Palestinian
Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO)
Introduction: The International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO) was established in 2003 by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) and many international volunteers who have worked extensively in providing adult and pediatric cardiac surgery in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The first meeting 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 been on nearly 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, another IPCRO co-founder. Dr. Crupi has also led nearly a dozen missions to Palestine through the PCRF since 1999, working first in Makassed Hospital, then in Ramallah Hosptial, moving also to Shifa Hospital in Gaza and then, most recently, again in Makassed Hospital. Dr. Crupi has also treated dozens of Palestinian and Iraqi children for free at his hospital in Bergamo. He served as the second chairman of IPRCO from 2004-2005.

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 have come to join their colleagues in Palestine to plan for building an effective pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine, as well as an adult cardiac surgery program in Gaza. That conference set the stage for a very successful 2006 in which over 100 children had open-heart surgery at Makassed Hospital and the infrastructure was created in the hospital to have an independent program.

This year's 4th annual conference is to build upon last years' success, as there is more work than even to do for this unit to be fully independent and functioning. We also need to address 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. There is still much work left to do in this regard, as the political and economic situation in Gaza has set back this effort significantly over the past year.

See list of IPCRO members


In the News
March 19, 2008
Jerusalem Healthcare

Care for sick children in Palestine

Sir, Walter Felman (letters, March 14) writes of the work of the Wolfson Medical Centre’s cardiac programme for children and implies that Palestinian children with congenital heart disease can access appropriate treatment through Israeli institutions.

Unfortunately, this is only part of the story. The International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organisation (IPCRO) has been treating children from the West Bank and Gaza in the Makassed Hospital in east Jerusalem for many years, but the development of the programme there has been consistently impeded by restrictions placed by the Israeli authorities on travel by families from Gaza and the West Bank. Despite efforts by the British Consul in Jerusalem to facilitate access to hospital treatment, far too many children die or suffer long-term morbidity as a result of the unacceptable and inhumane approach to sick Palestinian patients prevalent in that part of the world.

Babulal Sethia, FRCS
Consultant Cardiac Surgeon
President, IPCRO


PCRF/IPCRO presents Palestine Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Program at International Conference in Geneva, Switzerland
The third global forum on Humanitarian Medicine in Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery was held at the University Hospital of Geneva from May. 24-26. Dr. B. Sethia, a cardiac surgeon from Brompton Hospital in London and the current president of the International Cardiac Relief Organization (IPRCO) attended and presented the results of the cardiac surgical program at Makassad Hospital for the period 2003 to 2006 on behalf of all colleagues in the IPCRO and the PCRF.

The Congress was attended by approximately one hundred and fifty delegates from around the world who were able to share knowledge on the issues confronting their populations and the experience of various international teams in developing successful programs around the world. Distinguished congenital heart surgeons including Professor Aldo Castenada (previously Chief of Surgery at Boston’s Children’s Hospital) discussed their recent experience in developing countries. Common mutual problems included how to sustain cardiac programs, how to adapt surgical techniques in different environments, how to build successful partnerships in cardiology and cardiac surgery and how to collaborate between international organizations and aid agencies around the world. Sessions were held on how to diminish the gap between developing and emerging countries both with regard to research and training and the education, prevention and control of cardiac disease and how to retain local care givers and avoid the international brain drain. Alan Kerr, Mahmoud Nashashibi and B. Sethia had pulled together the data available from the international program at Makassad and reported on 384 patients treated over four years with a total of 12 deaths. The specific problems facing the program in Palestine were presented and many delegates were both surprised and complimentary as they noted what has been achieved by the PCRF/IPCRO in Palestine over the recent years.

4th Annual IPCRO Meeting Held in Jerusalem
On March 24, the 4th annual conference for building a pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine was held under the sponsorship of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) at the Seven Arches Hotel in East Jerusalem. The conference was for the International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization (IPCRO), a consulting arm of the PCRF.

The conference was opened by IPCRO president Dr. Alan Kerr, a cardiac surgeon from New Zealand who has volunteered on over a dozen missions to Ramallah, Shifa and Makassed Hospitals, where he has been training local surgeons and staff, and treating children with heart disease. After welcoming the distinguished guests from all over Palestine and the world, Dr. Rafiq Husseini, the chief of staff for President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the conference. He reiterated the high priority that the President's office has for this project in Makassed Hospital, as it is the main referral hospital for Palestinians from the territories and the most suitable for such a highly specialized program. PCRF President Steve Sosebee then gave a report on the accomplishments of the past year, in which a new 3-bed pediatric cardiac intensive care unit was established at Makassed, as well as a new heart-lung machine, which was donated by the UAE red Crescent, and a new echo machine, donated by RAFEED and USAID.

" Over 100 Palestinian children had heart surgery last year in Makassed Hospital and this year we hope to double that number", Sosebee said.

Other members attending the conference included the administration of Makassed Hospital, led by the new director Dr. Farouk Abdulrahim, who stressed his appreciation for the support of IPCRO and the PCRF for this program and his administration's desire to see it advance into a center of excellence in which all Palestinian children with heart disease will have treatment.

A panel discussion led by Dr. B Sethia from Brompton Hospital in London then ensued concerning the need to certify Palestinian surgeons in cardiac surgery. Also on this panel was Dr. Alan Kerr, Dr. Katrien Francois from Belgium and Dr. Vivien Bader from Makassed. Another panel was then held on the issue of pediatric cardiology in Palestine, which included visiting Professor Ra-id Abdulla from the University of Chicago, who has been doing echocardiography screening of children in the Jenin area for the past few years through the PCRF, Dr. Ziad Saba, the chief of pediatric cardiology at Oakland Children's Hospital in California, who just did a mission of invasive pediatric cardiology at the Ramallah catheterization lab, Dr. Mahmoud Nashashibi, who is the head of pediatric cardiology at Makassed Hospital, Dr. Sami Abu Dalfa, director of Muhammed Durra Hospital in Gaza City, and Dr. Bishar Afana, a pediatric cardiologist from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Dr. Abu Dalfa gave a presentation about the problem of congenital heart disease in the Gaza Strip and thanked the PCRF for their efforts in providing care for sick children over the past 10 years.

After lunch, the conference had a panel discussion on the issue of building an adult cardiac surgery program for the Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million people currently have no access to open-heart surgery. Dr. Hassan Zammar, a cardiologist from the European Hospital in Khan Younis gave an overview of the situation in Gaza and his efforts to provide care in the new catheterization lab at his hospital, which was built by the Belgian government.

Prof. Guido Van Nooten, a consultant for the Belgian government and the head of cardiac surgery at the University of Gent, spoke about his government's work in building the cath lab in Gaza, Ramallah and the new ICU in Ramallah Hospital, and their desire to assist in building a cardiac surgery program there.

Dr. Imad Tabry, who has led over 7 missions to Shifa hospital in Gaza since the Intifada began, addressed in a frank manner his disappointment in the lack of progress in Gaza, despite the hard work of many local doctors and nurses there. Transferring patients to Egypt is not a solution for the Palestinian people or the ministry of health, Dr. Tabry explained. Something has to be established in Gaza itself, where thousands of people needlessly die a year due to heart disease.

Dr. Ahmed Darwazeh, the head of cardiac surgery at Makassed Hospital, spoke about the urgent need to find a solution to this problem in Gaza and his efforts to go there to help, but that he was denied access by the Israeli occupation authorities. Three members of NORWAC, a Norwegian NGO, then spoke about their success in building a cardiac surgery program in Bosnia and that the PA MOH had asked them to do a study on this issue for Palestine.

Dr. Giancarlo Crupi, a cardiac surgeon from Bergamo, Italy then spoke about a program to raise funds from local governments there for supporting this program in Makassed Hospital. The conference was then adjourned by the attendees then visiting Makassed Hospital's new ICU, which was built by the PCRF.

Dr. Alan Kerr cut the ribbon for the new unit, which already had two babies from Gaza inside being treated after the Belgian mission to Makassed the previous week. Dr. Kerr then will start surgery on March 25. The plan for 2007 is to find more doctors for training in surgery, cardiology and intensive care for the program, and expanding the ICU to six beds, with the support of the hospital administration. View the IPCRO conference brochure

Conference in Building A Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Program in Palestine held in Ramallah
On December 10, 2004, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund brought to Palestine top specialists from all over the world for the third annual conference of the International Palestinian Cardiac Relief Organization to discuss the progress in building a pediatric cardiac surgery program in Palestine. Held at the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah, the conference included such important doctors from Europe and North America, including Professor Guido Van Nooten from the University of Gent in Belgium, Professor Alessandro Frigiola from Milan, Italy, Dr. B. Sethia from Royal Brompton Hospital in London, Dr. Giancarlo Crupi from Bergamo, Italy, Dr. Katrien Francois from the University of Gent in Belgium, Dr. Ra-id Abdulla from the University of Chicago and Dr. Imad Tabry from Holy Cross Hospital in Florida. The new IPCRO president is Dr. Alan Kerr from Greenlane Hospital in New Zealand.

The local participants in the conference included Dr. Qassem Maani and Dr. Akram Samhan from the Ministry of Health, Dr. Daghram Abu Ramadan and Dr. Fahme Habibi from Ramallah Hospital and Dr. Mahmoud Zaqout from Durra Hospital in Gaza. Makassed Hospital sent several doctors to the concerence, starting with medical director Dr. Haitham al-Hassan, chief of cardiac surgery Dr. Ahmed Darwazeh, pediatric cardiologist Dr. Mahmoud Nashashibi, Anesthesiologist Dr. Hassan Ismail, chief of nursing Mr. Suleiman Turkuman, as well as several other people.

The purpose of the conference was to plan for creating a pediatric cardiac surgery program at Makassed Hospital. Each year over 600 children are born with heart disease in Palestine and the need to create a local program where these children can be treated by Palestinian doctors in a Palestinian hospital is a main objective. Since 1998, the PCRF has brought over 60 foreign teams in cardiac surgery and cardiology, saving the lives of hundreds of Palestinians. The results of the conference was that all parties agreed that the need for such a unit is high, that the center should be at Makassed Hospital and that the PCRF and IPRCO will help build the unit by bringing equipment, provide training and support the hospital until such a unit is independent. Such a program will save the PA MOH millions of dollars and, more importantly, will save the lives of so many Palestinian children.

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.

Emile Bacha, M.D. – Chicago, IL
Dr. Emile Bacha is the Director of the Congenital and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery section and an Assistant Professor of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery & Pediatrics and the University of Chicago. His medical degree and post-graduate training is from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. Prior to moving to Chicago, he was an Instructor in Surgery at the Harvard Medical School and worked at Boston Children’s Hospital. He led a humanitarian surgical mission to Palestine in 1999, and has provided free surgery for children at his hospital in Chicago.

Thierry Bové, M.D. – Gent, Belgium
Dr. Thierry Bové is an Associate Clinical Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Gent in Belgium. He was a Resident-fellow Cardiac Surgery from 1999-2001, and an Associate Clinical Chief Cardiac Surgery at the Academic Hospital Free University of Brussels Since January 2002. He is a member of the Royal Belgian Society of General Surgery and the Belgian Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery. In February, 2004, he led a team to East Jerusalem to treat children with heart disease.

Alistair Cranston, M.D. - Birmingham, UK
Dr. Alistair Cranston is a Consultant Paediatric Anaesthetist at The Birmingham Children’s Hospital in the United Kingdom. He is a member of the The British Medical Association, The Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, the Association of Paediatric Anaesthetists of GB & I, and an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Anaesthesia, University of Birmingham. He has trained in Guys & Lewisham Hospitals and Great Ormand Street in London and was trained at The London Hospital Medical College. He has been on several cardiac missions with the PCRF to Palestine.

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.

Daniel de Wolf, M.D. – Gent, Belgium
Professor Daniel de Wolf is a paediatric cardiologist at the University of Gent. He took his paediatric cardiology training at AMC in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, was on staff in Paediatric cardiology at AZ VUB, Brussels 1990-1995 and moved to Gent in 1995. He is on the steering committee of the Belgian Working Group for Echocardiography and Doppler, member of the Belgian Working Group for Interventional Cardiology, the secretary of the Belgische Vereniging voor Congenitale en Kindercardiologie, treasurer of the working group on morphology of the Association of European Paediatric Cardiologists, member of the Interdisciplinary workgroup Acute Cardiology, and member of the International Society of Invasive Cardiology in Congenital Heart Disease. He is the associate editor of Paediatric Cardiology and has been on several surgical and screening humanitarian missions to Palestine and other international sites.

Jose Fragata, M.D. – Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Jose Fragata is a Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine in program in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Hospital the Santa Cruz in Lisbon, was a Senior House Officer in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and was a Registrar in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in Liverpool. In 1987 he was a Locum Consultant Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in Liverpool. From 1988 to 1998 he was a specialist in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Hospital de Santa Cruz in Lisbon. From 1998 to 2002 he was a Consultant Cardiac Surgeon and Head of the Pediatric Cardiac Unit Hospital Santa Marta, Lisbon. He was also the head of Adult Cardiac Surgery at Hospital CUF in Lisbon. He has treated Palestinian children for free at his center in Lisbon.

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.

Professor Alessandro Frigiola, M.D.
Prof. Frigiola is the chief of Cardiac Surgery in the “E. Malan” Centre at the San Donato Polyclinic Institute in San Donato Milanese in Milan, Italy. This is one of the largest cardiac surgery programs in Europe, doing over 1,200 adult and pediatric open-heart cases a year. Dr. Frigiola is a member of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Network and the European Society for Cardiovascular Surgery, as well as many other international and Italian organizations. he is the president and founder of the International Association for Children with Heart Disease. He has led the building of pediatric cardiac surgery programs in Syria, Egypt, China, Cameroon, Albania, Libya and Tunisia, as well as Iraq. His surgery interests include coronary artery surgery, congenital heart disease, the Ross Procedure and Mitral Valve Repair.

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.

Deborah Lammert, M.A., Nursing – Tulsa, Oklahoma
Debi Lammert is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Pediatric Cardiovascular Services at the Children’s Hospital at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has a Master’s of Science in Nursing and is professionally certified as a Critical Care Registered Nurse, a Pediatric Nurse, in Pediatric Advanced Life Support, Basic Life support and she is a Certified Clinician in Percutaneously Inserted Central Catheters. She is an Associated Adjunct Professor at the Tulsa Community College of Nursing in Tulsa, and an instructor and instructor trainer in pediatric advanced life support. She is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, The American Heart Association, The American Nurses Association, National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, the Society of Pediatric Nurses and the Society of Pediatric Cardiovascular Nurses. She has also been on several humanitarian missions throughout the world, including several to Palestine.

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.

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.