It is estimated that at least a million children are dying across the globe from untreated heart disease every year in the 21st Century. Healing Little Hearts was established in 2007 by Dr Sanjiv Nichani with a view to begin making an impact on the lack of Cardiac care for Babies, Children and Teenagers born with Heart disease in lower and middle income countries in the world.
Healing Little Hearts sends volunteer teams of doctors and nurses to the poorest countries of the world to perform Heart Surgery on children
for free and train and empower the local doctors and nurses in cardiac
care for children. It began operating in Bombay before branching out
across the world. 2018 saw the charity undertake 23 International
Cardiac camps and operate on 296 children with a 97% success rate. To
date the charity has operated upon 1623 children.
The charity has now become a Global Foundation and have visited Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mauritius, Palestine, Malaysia and Tier 2 Cities in India, Romania, Latvia and Peru.
Healing Little Hearts’ team of volunteer doctors and nurses from all across the UK take annual leave and fly out for 1 week at a time. During that week they perform cardiac surgery on between 12-15
children. It costs on average of £6000 in air travel costs to send a team of volunteers for 1 week; effectively breaking down to a cost of £500 per child and the charity only works with Hospitals who do not make a profit
from their operating on these children.
