Dubai: Thousands of special needs children have received free heart screenings by a team of experts at the Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services. The non-governmental organisation — the Zayed Giving Initiative in conjunction with the Saudi German Hospital and the charity Dar Al Bel Society, initiated the Heart-to-Heart campaign locally with this event.
Dr Reem Othman, the executive director of the Saudi German Hospital and the ambassador for humanitarian work at the Zayed Giving Initiative who led the team of senior doctors and volunteers said: “Heart disease though one of the most preventable conditions causes the highest number of deaths. About 85 per cent of heart disease can be avoided following a healthy diet and early heart examination.”
She also added that the volunteer medical team that examined the special needs children detected many cardiac anomalies using the latest medical technology of ECG devices and cardiac imaging ultrasound waves devices.
Elaborating on the campaign which was initiated on UAE National Day, Dr Adel Al Shamri, CEO of the Zayed Giving Initiative and eminent cardiac surgeon said: “The heart-to-heart campaign is a unique and innovative model in the field of community and humanitarian work and will provide an important leap in the level of community health services through highly specialised doctors offering volunteer service to help lower the suffering of thousands of poor heart patients locally and worldwide.”
Dr Reem added that the campaign is determined to provide in this sense innovative health solutions and increase the awareness of the community about cardiovascular disease by providing programmes for early detection of heart disease and thus work to reduce the its spread locally.
She also confirmed that the heart-to-heart campaign was set to be launched internationally in middle of January 2015 in Africa.
Dr Al Shamri said that the campaign had been able to reach more than three million children and elderly people and has held more than 7,000 open-heart surgeries for children and adults since it was established in 2002.
