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28469: Hemantin(News)Group aids girl in need of surgery (fwd)





From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Group aids girl in need of surgery


Heart defect is life-threatening



By Michelle Hirsch
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

June 18, 2006



When Pamela Marcellus was an infant, doctors determined she had a heart condition so severe that doctors in her native Haiti wouldn't be able to treat her.

Her doctor took away her oxygen pump when she was 3, saying her case was hopeless and other children with a better chance of survival needed it more, said the child's mother, Joane Degan.

That day, the doctor said that Pamela's only chance of survival would be relocating to the United States where the proper treatment was available for complete atrioventricular septal defect, the heart condition she was born with, her mother remembers.

Pamela, now 4, has large holes between the upper and lower chambers of her heart and two of her heart valves are also malformed, Degan said.

The girl and her mother made it to South Florida last September with the help of Haitian-American sisters Ginnette and Gina Eugene and the International Kids Fund.

Degan contacted the Eugene sisters after seeing a television report in Haiti describing how they worked with the foundation and the American Embassy to help send another sick child to the United States for treatment.

The group is part of the Jackson Memorial Foundation that raises money to care for children who cannot receive necessary treatment in their home country and do not have the money to pay for surgery here.

Doctors at Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami are treating the child while fundraising efforts are under way to pay for the surgery.

Her symptoms have improved, but "without treatment, she won't make it," said Dr. Eliot Rosenkranz, director of Congenital Heart Surgery.

The hospital can't pay for the procedure with taxpayers' money because Pamela is not a U.S. citizen and doesn't have medical insurance, said IKF director Maria-Luisa Chea who helped launch a fundraising campaign to raise $60,000 for the surgery.



Michelle Hirsch can be reached at mhhirsch@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7916.


Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel