Shen Yang & Shen Yuet Children's Heart Foundation is a charity organisation based in Ghana, Africa. Founded by the family of the global chairman of the Sunda International Group of Companies, Mr. Shen Yan Chang. Coming from a family where one of his sons was born with a hole in heart condition, he felt it was only right to guide his two sons to help families in the same situation as they were since they have the means to do so. The foundation seeks to help children with congenital heart diseases and their families by paying for the treatment these children require as well as assist them with the post operation care.
In the case of Ghana, as many as 372 per million of the Ghanaian population are affected with cardiovascular disease with the majority losing their lives due to lack of financial access to surgical treatment. Only 20% of parents are able to pay for the surgery. Cardiovascular diseases are major causes of death and account for as high as one-fifth of all causes of death. Basically, a diagnosis of Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) is a death sentence for children born to poor parents.
In the year 2018, it was reported by the then Deputy Health Minister, Mr. Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu that an average of 7000 children are born with hole in heart in Ghana. On the average, one out of every 100 children born with the disorder would die, whereas more than 50 percent of the children did not live up to five years without timely intervention.
NGOs and other Foundations/Institutions have helped in playing a significant role in the aiding of less privileged families to facilitate the necessary fundings for surgeries since it is too expensive for most families to afford. Moreso, the diagnostic capabilities for cardiothoracic pathology outside the main teaching hospitals in the country are limited. There is the need for urgent expansion of the existing infrastructure in other parts of the country. There are only a few cardiothoracic centres in the country with the most popular located in the southernmost part of the country which is the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. Improving the current infrastructure and manpower will increase geographical access to cardiothoracic services.
Furthermore, there has been reports from the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery Health Care Ghana and the founder of Global Heart Care Mr. Charles Yankah said a few years back that Ghana had only one qualified pediatric cardiologist and 14 adult cardiologists for over 30 million population. The number of patients is greatly higher than cardiovascular surgeons. These are a few problems facing the cardiothoracic aspect in Ghana but on the bright side there are NGOs and other Institutions that are impacting greatly in cardiothoracic centres with their support to families and hospitals to improve the cardiothoracic centres in Ghana.
- Coordinate the funding to the hospitals
- Make sure we get the value for the funding
- Follow up with the families
- Support the families with the aftercare
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– Heart Surgery Project
– Community Playground
– Children’s Ward Waiting Area
– May 9th Foundation Project
– Regional Children’s Library Project
Saving 20 children a year is the minimum we can do. With your support, we can increase the number to give more children a chance to live and ease the pain of families.
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