1: What are you trying to accomplish?
2: What's your evidence that you can accomplish it?
3: How is it possible that you can provide an open heart surgery in Iraq for less than $1,000? Is that the full cost?
4: So is that the same thing as saying that my donation doesn't really make a difference? That the "up to 85%" funded locally by those inside Iraq is all that is really necessary to make this work?
5: Any other costs?
6: What is the bottleneck to more surgeries: money or skilled labor?
7: I'm skeptical of non-profits and charities because they always seem to be asking for more money. How can I be sure that Preemptive Love Coalition has "room for more funding" and that I'm not paying into a huge savings account, "Rainy Day Fund", or something similar?
8: Do you have enough volunteer surgeons available for unfunded Remedy Missions? (i.e., are there trips that you could fund if you had more money, or is there a labor bottleneck?)
9: Many heart surgeries require follow-up treatment (including additional surgeries). Do you have a way of providing these to patients?
10: How do you assess whether surgeries are completed competently and appropriately?
11: What is the rate of complications during and following surgery?
12: How do you assess whether surgeons are performing additional surgeries that they would have not had the funding or motivation to perform otherwise?
13: How do you assess whether surgeons are charging their patients for the surgeries you fund?
14: Do you follow up with the surgeons you've trained to assess whether they are correctly applying their training?
15: What information is available on the activities - and competence - of the surgeons you've trained?
16: Where do surgeons work after completing training? Do they serve poor patients?
17: How much do you spend each year on "program" expenses and how much on "overhead?"


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 Q: What are you trying to accomplish?

A: Train Iraqi heart surgeons and nurses so they can eradicate the backlog of tens of thousands of Iraqi children waiting in line for lifesaving heart surgery. [Back to Top]

 Q: What's your evidence that you can accomplish it?

A: Each year we continue to increase Iraq's total number of pediatric cardiac surgeries with new surgeries in Iraqi centers that would not - indeed could not - have been accomplished otherwise. Ministry of Health (MOH) officials speculate 500 surgeries were accomplished in 2009 (of which we provided 23 - 4.6% - outside the country). The addition of our 82 surgeries in FY 2010 - to the 500 baseline - for a total of 582 approximated surgeries, represents an increase created by PLC of 14% over 2009. In FY 2011 we anticipate increasing Iraq's total number of pediatric cardiac surgeries to at least 719 (or another 19% over FY 2010 directly attributable to our surgeons and our training).

Each year the local teams with which we work will become more proficient, and each year they will independently take on a larger case load than they could have the year before. None of these figures yet account for that additional output.

In March 2010 the Iraqi Ministry of Health asked us to expand our work to three additional sites. In May 2010 we began additional discussions about establishing a fellowship program in which international surgeons and nurses would take up residence in the Iraqi system to train locally for 40 weeks out of the year.

Our model does not rely strictly on volunteers because the level of need in Iraq outstrips what we could reasonably supply through volunteer labor alone. Accordingly, we set our budgets so as to actually contract the international surgical and nursing staff we need to accomplish our mission.

Sure, this increases the cost-per-mission (and thereby, cost-per-child) over early "mission" models in which volunteerism was idealized and training was not necessarily prioritized. But our contract labor + volunteerism model is inarguably the only way to create a nationwide quarterly training program and fellowships inside Iraq with international experts across approximately 6-8 surgical sites. Moreover, our model does not face the same sluggishness of learning that other surgery organizations suffer because we do not have the same rates of turnover; we have incredible consistency across our programs and missions. [Back to Top]

 Q: How is it possible that you can provide an open heart surgery in Iraq for less than $1,000? Is that the full cost?

A: The "less than $1k" numbers we routinely publish represent the amount in "program costs" we spend from our international donor money. The figure does not necessarily account for every single management, overhead, or fundraising expense.

Our total expenditures for FY 2010 were $188,919. We performed 82 surgeries during the same period for a per child total of $2,304 (though this data is a bit moot moving into 2010-11 as we abandon our very expensive "surgery exports" program(s) in Turkey, etc. and focus henceforth on more cost-effective in-country surgeries alone).

When all of our Remedy Mission partners are taken into consideration - including the Iraqi Government, medical companies that donate medicines and supplies, and local organizations - the real Remedy Mission cost to all donors is in the range of $5,400 - $7,000. Put another way, up to 85% of the total cost of a single surgical/training mission is now subsidized by local, Iraqi constituent institutions. [Back to Top]

 Q: So is that the same thing as saying that my donation doesn't really make a difference? That the "up to 85%" funded locally by those inside Iraq is all that is really necessary to make this work?

A: There is not a single site across Iraq for which our Remedy Missions are fully funded. If we fail to provide our 15-19% of the overall budget, Remedy Missions fail, surgeons and nurses do not get trained regularly, on-site audits from our international team do not happen, up to 20 children are delayed from receiving surgery, and a few may even die or become inoperable. Your role in funding the remaining 15-19% is as critical in the short term as any other entity. A single Remedy Mission is binary - it either happens or it doesn't. Your money makes it happen. But our goal is to continue to graduate all our programs so they are 100% funded locally in the next 5-10 years. [Back to Top]

 Q: Any other costs?

A: Our numbers per Remedy Mission do not account for "indirect costs," such as the cost (or value) of our volunteer medical staff from around the world, costs to local healthcare systems, the cost of a family to travel to the surgery site, the opportunity costs of lost income for families as they wait for surgery, etc. The reason we think it's important to note this here is because lifesaving is actually quite difficult. Building a pediatric cardiac surgery system for the entire country of Iraq is laborious and full of complexities. [Back to Top]

 Q: What is the bottleneck to more surgeries: money or skilled labor?

A: People often assume that the biggest need is more Iraqi heart surgeons. We could use a few more, but the real bottleneck is skilled nurses, technicians, and non-surgical physicians. A surgeon is only as good as his support staff. One of our biggest challenges is training pediatric cardiac intensive care nurses. To date, we haven't found a better model than our Remedy Missions through which we bring quarterly hands-on training to local nurses (and surgeons) in Iraq. Rather than exporting the nurses to Europe or the USA for training (whose medical systems barely resemble the Iraqi system), we train them with what they have on hand in their local environment. [Back to Top]

 Q: I'm skeptical of non-profits and charities because they always seem to be asking for more money. How can I be sure that Preemptive Love Coalition has "room for more funding" and that I'm not paying into a huge savings account, "Rainy Day Fund", or something similar?

A: For the record, we are skeptical of non-profits as well! In 2012 PLC needs $350,000 on hand at any given time to cover our cash flow needs for up to three Remedy Missions per quarter. We are still 30% under-funded against that goal. In addition to cash flow needs, we still require 15-19% funding on most of our missions after local sources contribute their portion; we have un-funded pilot programs in new cities where local doctors have been requesting our help (but where weve yet to woo local philanthropists or health directors); and we have research and social service initiatives through our Followthrough program that require funding at present because we have not yet sought local funding for those initiatives (seeing as how they relate mostly to our Monitoring & Impact Evaluation objectives). Please see our "Funding Gap" page to look deeper into our anticipated program costs, the sources of funding we are counting on, and the funding gap between the two for the next few years. [Back to Top]

 Q: Do you have enough volunteer surgeons available for unfunded Remedy Missions? (i.e., are there trips that you could fund if you had more money, or is there a labor bottleneck?)

A: Great question! We use a hybrid volunteer/staff model. Roughly 25-30% of any one of our Remedy Mission teams is employed by the International Children's Heart Foundation (typically the surgeon, scrub nurse, anesthesiologist, ICU doctor, and often a part-time ICU nurse). The remainder of the team typically comprises volunteer physicians, technicians, and nurses from across the world. Because the hardest-to-come-by positions are contract labor for us and NOT volunteers, we have never failed to run a mission for lack of personnel. We have only cancelled or turned down a request for a future mission due to lack of funding. [Back to Top]

 Q: Many heart surgeries require follow-up treatment (including additional surgeries). Do you have a way of providing these to patients?

A: Yes, we do. Our model dictates quarterly visits to each program site (a hospital inside a regional hub). Our reliance on local cardiologists ensures that the local team prioritizes and almost entirely sets the agenda for patient selection (within a development curricula) - after all, Iraqi doctors are the ones who are most intimately connected to the patients and their daily progress! When a local cardiologist sees a child who has either (1) deteriorated and requires another intervention or (2) advanced as expected to the next step of a complex, staged intervention, the child is prioritized for follow-up treatment. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeries are completed competently and appropriately?

A: Because we are a broker and play a combination administrative and financier role in the coalition of partners working in Iraq to develop pediatric cardiac care, we are able to stand in-between the local surgical team and the international surgical team (whom we contract as a third-party to train and perform surgeries in Iraq). If the local team or health directorate suspects a lack of competence in the international team, a cavalier attitude, or a single poor judgement call, our role is to be the go-between - to be the advocate for the local healthcare providers vis-a-vis the international surgical team.

Similarly, if the international surgical team feels pushed by the local surgical team to perform procedures with which they are uncomfortable or for which they think the local system is ill-prepared, they are able to refuse children for surgery and/or use us (PLC) as a go-between.

The checks-and-balance between the two teams helps us ensure surgeries are performed in a competent, appropriate manner. [Back to Top]

 Q: What is the rate of complications during and following surgery?

A: We report our in-hospital and 60-day mortality after each Remedy Mission. You can finds those numbers here. We also produce reports after each Remedy Mission detailing the trip, including data on intraoperative complications, post-operative complications, and mortality. You can find those reports here. We are also deliberately raising the funds necessary to help us bring our various heart hospitals into compliance with the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries. If this kind of quality improvement and reporting initiative interests you, we are currently looking for financial partners for our Followthrough program. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeons are performing additional surgeries that they would have not had the funding or motivation to perform otherwise?

A: Pediatric heart surgery in Iraq is almost nonexistent without our work. There are two active programs for relatively simple surgeries (one in Erbil and one in Baghdad). Local surgeons claim that combined they perform no more than a few hundred pediatric surgeries a year. In every location where we work, pediatric heart surgery is effectively nonexistent. Therefore, every surgery performed at our program sites (both when we are present and when we are not) are "additional surgeries" that they would not have had the SKILL to perform without the FUNDING we employed to train them in their local environment. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeons are charging their patients for the surgeries you fund?

A: Because we work in public (government) hospitals - and because healthcare in Iraq is provided almost entirely free of charge - it is widely known that any cardiologist, surgeon, or administrator seeking compensation for services is acting outside of Iraqi law. [Back to Top]

 Q: Do you follow up with the surgeons you've trained to assess whether they are correctly applying their training?

A: We see them quarterly in their local environment and perform real-time audits of their skills, recollection of past training, application of new techniques, etc. Additionally, our international surgeon remains on call at any time via phone, Skype, or email for consultation. [Back to Top]

 Q: What information is available on the activities - and competence - of the surgeons you've trained?

A: Because our Remedy Mission training program only began in late 2010 - and pediatric heart surgery at our sites across Iraq is the same age - there is still relatively little independent practice to report, and therefore little data on the activities and competence of our surgeons and their teams. But as they begin performing more surgeries independently, we are trying to align each site/surgical team with the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries (a data collection and tracking initiative of Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University). [Back to Top]

 Q: Where do surgeons work after completing training? Do they serve poor patients?

A: As of Q2 2011 there was only one private hospital in Iraq (to our knowledge) providing pediatric heart surgery (and those surgeries were on the lower end of the complexity scale). Our work does not necessarily mean to exclude private hospitals as they continue to come online and become viable options, but at present the government system has a better equipped foundation for training local surgical teams. As we look to fully graduate our local surgical teams in the next 5-10 years, we imagine that most of them will stay in the public sector for all of the stability, pensions, and benefits of loyalty provided to those who stick with it. But, undoubtedly, some will seek positions at private hospitals (assuming private hospitals are willing to invest in the requisite capital purchases necessary to establish a credible program). In the public sector, rich and poor are served alike. In the private sector, poorer patients would be at an obvious disadvantage. [Back to Top]

 Q: How much do you spend each year on "program" expenses and how much on "overhead?"

A: As a rule, we do not adhere to the model that claims that "overhead" is somehow bad and "program" is somehow good. There are very bad program expenses. There are overhead expenses that are excellent investments. We agree with Paul Brest, President of the Hewlett Foundation, when he said, "Achieving a low overhead ratio drives many charities to behaviors that make them less effective and means more, not less, wasted dollars." Therefore, we spend as much on overhead as we need to accomplish our mission. The mission itself is our North Star - not arbitrary (even harmful) standards about overhead-vs-program expenditures. For the record, however, you can find a current pie chart of our expenditures here (and if you're into that sort of thing, you'll probably be impressed!). [Back to Top]

Jeremy Courtney Founder, Executive Director Twitter: @Jeremy_Courtney

“I'd love to hear any critique or questions you might have!”

DROP A NOTE OR DONATION BY MAIL: Preemptive Love Coalition 1300 Darbyton Dr. Hewitt, TX 76643 GIVE BY PHONE: To make a gift over the phone, using your credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover), please call +1 (806) 853-9131 during normal business hours. IRAQ OFFICE: +964 770-355-6298 (local)

Iraq Sees Its Second Arterial Switch—Ever!

January 14, 2012 by Cody · Leave a Comment 

Baby Ridha was born just 19 days ago. She may not be old enough to keep up with The Fantastic Five, but she was born at the perfect time for the surgeons to save her life. By the time Remedy arrived, Ridha’s heart was at the perfect developmental stage to be fixed, making her the 2nd (and the youngest!) baby to ever receive an arterial switch in Iraq!

Noor’s Heading Into Surgery!

July 4, 2011 by Cody · Leave a Comment 

Noor’s wait is over!

She’s made it into the operating room and the doctors are hard at work making sure that they send Noor away with a strong and healthy heart!

If they’re able to accomplish all they hope to accomplish with Noor, it will be the 9th lifesaving heart surgery this trip.

Thanks for making this possible! More news to come…

Our Partners:

Death Will Never Conquer

March 4, 2011 by Jeremy · 5 Comments 

Yahya passed away early this morning after an all-night surgery. It was a surprise to everyone. When he was admitted to the ICU there seemed to be plenty of confidence that he would be just fine. But within just 30 minutes of admission his heart gave out and all efforts to revive him failed.

I still remember the first time I was introduced to Yahya. It was over a year ago. His uncle called my cell phone and said, “I’m at your office, I need to talk to you about a sick kid.”

It was after hours and I was already at home. But I could hear the urgency in his voice so I invited him to my home for tea. He arrived and made an impassioned plea for Yahya – his brother’s son. I was leery of helping Yahya after reading his reports – we had seen some children with complex heart defects like him die abroad and I couldn’t stand to put a family through that drama again. I did my best to avoid commitment and send Yahya’s uncle into the night without any solid hope for his nephew.

The following weeks were filled with phone calls and followup from the family, “Please help our boy!”

Finally, I met Yahya’s mom and dad and the little cutie himself. As they sat in my office they pled with humble urgency. They weren’t forceful. They weren’t rude. But they applied enough pressure on me that I couldn’t say “no” any longer. They made it abundantly clear that they understood the risk of his surgery and that they wanted it badly enough to endure whatever might come.

One of our core values as an organization is that we give “hope to the hopeless.” What that means is that we try to balance our impulse to be “last chance” people with our instinct to be “long-term” people. We held back on Yahya, wondering if it would give him long-term viability. But we ultimately dove in with Yahya’s family because we were their last chance. No one else would take on the risk.

We solidified this core value in November 2009 when we asked you what to do about a little boy named Ramyar. We asked you if you wanted us to apply your money in a high risk surgery or save it for a “sure thing.” You overwhelming said, “We want this Coalition to be about hope for the hopeless.”

We haven’t looked back since. We are the Last Chancers.

Still, committing to Yahya was full of complications. His surgery in Turkey was canceled due to an unavailability of an expensive assistant device. In fact, there was even discussion as to whether or not he should be included in our current Remedy Mission. Ultimately, we let the family themselves decide.

Our local cardiologist, along with our American surgeon, explained the risks of surgery, the option of waiting, etc. etc. Yahya’s dad was given a 50/50 chance of survival for little Yahya. Understandably, they wanted to give it a try. They couldn’t stand the risk of feeling like they had an opportunity to try and let it slip through their hands.

What would you have done? I have two kids – 5 and 3 years old. I have no idea what I would have done.

During Yahya’s surgery our Family Services Director, Jessica, sat down in the ward with all the parents whose kids were either in surgery or in critical condition in the ICU – those families whose kids were not “out of the woods” yet. As they asked questions about our organization and how long we’ve been working here, she recounted for them our past of taking children outside the country to significantly nicer hospitals than this Iraqi version in which we currently work. She told them about excellent American-trained Turkish doctors and fancy, pristine protocols abroad. Without fail, every family was so grateful for the chance to receive surgery at home. Let the Turks have their pristine hospital. “What if our child were to die abroad?” That would be a burden far too great to bear.

You gave Yahya’s family a chance that no one else would have. He had been rejected by every other opportunity out there. They are grateful to you. They will rest knowing they gave it their all for their only child.

And this is what we find almost universally – parents who just want a chance. And that’s what Remedy Missions are all about. We could continue to export kids to world class facilities, but who would invest in the future? We could continue to select the easiest children that almost never die, but does that make us any less culpable for the kids we pretend aren’t knocking on our door?

Was this a wasted opportunity? Did we waste the $670 that it cost us to provide Yahya surgery?

I used to feel that way when a child died in Turkey or Jordan or Jordan. I don’t feel that way anymore. Yahya’s death – though a terrible loss – was still an opportunity for local doctors to learn an innovative technique that they will be able to apply in future situations. His death was almost certainly unrelated to the particular tactic used in attempting to heal his heart. Educational gains always have significant costs. Before we only had the “we gave this child a chance” platitude. It’s not untrue. But local learning is an equally deep reason why your gift for Yahya made a difference.

Thank you for your willingness to stick with us through life and death. The gains that are needed here will not be made without significant risk and vision. We deeply appreciate your demand that we be the people of the last chance. I think it’s easier to sleep knowing we tried, than knowing we played it safe just so we could publish numbers and blog posts that seem more palatable.

With you,

Jeremy Courtney

Executive Director

email: http://scr.im/jcourt

+1 (806) 853-9131

See One. Do One. Teach One. Remedy Mission Trains Iraqi Heart Doctors and Nurses for the Future of the Children and their Country

February 23, 2011 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment 

Push play above for a peek into what it means for our volunteers to be here training local Iraqi heart doctors and nurses. After you’ve viewed it, please “SHARE” below with Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.

If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove.

Our Partners

His Heart Condition is Threatening His Life – Have You Met Alawi?

February 18, 2011 by Jeremy · 870 Comments 

You need to.

This just may be the cutest and most adorable boy in Iraq.

Alawi Hussein is just under three and a half years old and he was born with a congenital heart defect.

At 9 months old, instead of taking bets on what his first word was going to be, his parents were coping with the devastating news that Alawi had a heart problem. It was a heart problem, like most heart problems in Iraq, that could only be fixed outside of Iraq.

The list of countries that could help him was long.

Iran.

Turkey.

Jordan.

India.

America.

Basically – many other countries except the one he was born in.

While the list of opportunities was long, the list of actual possibilities for Alawi was short.

Hearing about all the doctors overseas that can heal your son is simply cruel if you don’t have the money – or even a passport – to pursue the option.

His family had to learn to enjoy the time they had with Alawi and just hope for a remedy the doctors might have somehow missed.

That surprise came this month when they were called by their local cardiologist here in southern Iraq and told that Alawi no longer needs to go overseas to be saved, because of a team of doctors and nurses that was being brought in to save his life at the hospital just fifteen minutes from their home

It was thirty-two months later than they were hoping but remedy finally came to southern Iraq.

We still hope that Alawi’s family will visit foreign countries someday, but not as last chance medical tourists!

You are the Remedy.

You bring in medical teams every time you give. Our medical teams teach Iraqi doctors and nurses. Our medical teams save lives. So Iraqi doctors and nurses learn how to save lives. Our medical team goes home. The Iraqi’s keep saving lives.

It’s one beautiful domino affect!

We hope we can save Alawi’s life this week… and not just because he’s one of the cutest boys in Iraq! Follow Alawi’s story this week on the blog and on our Facebook page (<-- link) to see what comes next...

Our Partners

Meet Ali. He Finally Got His Lifesaving Surgery on Our Second Trip to Southern Iraq

February 17, 2011 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment 

Ali gets his surgery as the first child during our February 2011 Remedy Mission to southern Iraq.

An interview with Cody Fisher about his first encounter with Ali and the journey to where he is today.

Push play above to meet little Ali….

With you,

If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove.

Our Partners

Overwhelmed by 350 kids on Local Waiting List as Remedy Rolls into Southern Iraq to Train Locals

February 16, 2011 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment 

It’s been a long journey from our home in northern to southern Iraq but we just can’t stay away – the doctors, nurses, and people here want their own fully functioning heart surgery center so badly!

Today marks the end of Remedy Mission Day #1 with the International Children’s Heart Foundation and Living Light International.

Push play above for a quick overview of day one and a setup of what’s to come this week from southern Iraq….

With you,

If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove.

Our Partners

Remembering Our First Remedy

December 4, 2010 by Cody · Leave a Comment 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been four months since our first Remedy Mission. When we landed in August we met 25 Kurdish and Arab children with severe heart defects. Over the past few weeks we’ve had the privilege to see those kids again, this time with WHOLE and HEALTHY hearts inside of them.

Remember Mohammad Fwad?

He was our last child to be taken out of ICU from the first Remedy. Not too long ago we stood alongside his mother and father, watching Mohammad recover so much slower than any of us were wanting. Recently we were able to stand alongside his mother again, this time being entertained by Mohammad and his new bike circling around the living room! He couldn’t be doing any better! To the side of the room was his three month old baby brother who was born the day Mohammad received his life-saving heart surgery.

It’s late for a Thanksgiving post – we know. But how can we not still be so overjoyed and THANKFUL for these healthy boys!

Above is a photo of Awara Hassan Mamma, Preemptive Love’s Director of Regional Development, with little Mohammad. While we so often celebrate the moment a child enters the operating room and the moment that same child has fully recovered with a healthy heart, there are so many things that need to happen before that child even has a chance to be operated on. This is why we’re thankful for Awara. He’s each family’s personal advocate who fights for their child every step of the way. He helps provide life-saving heart surgeries to one family at a time. Once he provides a family that, then he follows up with each child until they’re fully recovered.

Four weeks ago, my wife and I moved back to Iraq, which is where we met in 2007. Since we’ve been back we’ve had the joy to accompany Awara to the homes and families of each child that’s been helped these past few months. He knows each address by heart and the parents love him like he’s their own. We can’t blame them. We’re so incredibly thankful we all have Awara as a big brother.

We’re thankful for kids like Mohammad. We’re thankful for local advocates like Awara and all of our global advocates like YOU. You make this possible!

Remedy Mission Ushers in Wave of Voluntarism, Lays Groundwork for Future Initiatives in Iraq

August 31, 2010 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment 

Amed Omar has volunteered for us for more than two years. Amed invested heavily each day into the kids, showed an eagerness to use his knowledge of English and local languages to help in the training of local nurses in the Intensive Care Unit. | Photos by Heber Vega

As our first Remedy Mission has played out in Iraq over the last two weeks, we have been extremely encouraged by the number of people coming out, emailing, and calling in hopes of giving what they can as volunteers to assist in the effort. For years, a lack of voluntarism and a sense of entitlement among many throughout Iraq has caused us great concern for the future of crowd-sourced charitable organizations like ours. In Iraq many sit back and wait for the government to do it all. Too few go the extra mile of engaging the process, flexing their creativity, and creating the change that they ostensibly want to see.

But that is decidedly not how it was this week with Remedy Mission. We had 17 volunteers come out at some time or another to see the children, play with them, donate time, goods, and money, translate, function in administrative roles, write, advocate, promote, and – perhaps most importantly – become personally invested in the long-term drama of creating a long-term local solution for children in Iraq waiting in line for lifesaving heart surgery. In addition to the 17 who actually came and volunteered, we had another six on a waiting list that we simply could not absorb. We had to turn local Arab and Kurdish volunteers away!

Shahad Mohammad was a first-time volunteer with us this Remedy Mission after making friends with some of our summer interns. Shahad persisted in seeking volunteer opportunities, played with the kids, translated into Arabic, and involved others in her community in our work.

As we look to the future of charitable and social services in Iraq, we are encouraged by the diversity of youth and adults, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds that comprised our volunteer group these last two weeks for our Remedy Mission. If we can continue to generate this degree of local support and leverage the good intentions and much-needed hands and feet of the people of Iraq, the kids of Iraq (where we live at least) are going to be fine under the care of their local volunteers, government and healthcare professionals.

With you,

Remedy Missions are international pediatric heart surgery teams that we bring to Iraq to to perform lifesaving heart surgeries and develop the infrastructure for the future. If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #Remedy or #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove and @babyheart_org. If you’re on Facebook, “Share” this story with the button below.

Ahmed’s Surgery a Complete Success; Heart Stronger Than Ever Thanks to You!

August 21, 2010 by Cody · 3 Comments 

Ahmed is prepared for surgery with our visiting cardiologist, Dr. Sri Rao of the International Children’s Heart Foundation. Photo by Heber Vega

Ahmed’s 5 year battle to obtain his much-needed heart surgery is now a thing of the past after a 5.5 hour surgery that successfully corrected all five major heart defects! He’s now resting in ICU with his uncle who hasn’t left his side since his parents were seriously injured in a car crash this past week. If you haven’t read Ahmed’s story be sure to read it here.

We’ve all fallen in love with Ahmed, there’s no denying it. Today our joy is through the roof as we celebrate Ahmed’s life and the good news that both of his parents are recovering with him a few hours away in their home city!

Ahmed’s heart can now give his body everything it needs to run, jump, and shout for joy, thanks to you!

It’s always an exciting journey to the hospital each morning to see our kids. But tomorrow morning the trip is going to be special.

We can’t wait to see our friend, Ahmed.

With you,

Remedy Missions are international pediatric heart surgery teams that we bring to Iraq to to perform lifesaving heart surgeries and develop the infrastructure for the future. If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #Remedy or #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove and @babyheart_org. If you’re on Facebook, “Share” this story with the button below.

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