A doctor provides heart check-up to a child in an "Operation Health Heart" programme in Thai Binh Province. (Photo: VNA)Thai Binh (VNA) – Free heart diseasescreenings were given to poor children under 16 years old in northern Thai Binhprovince on August 12 as part of a charity project “Trai tim cho em” (OperationHealthy Heart).
Over 1,000 children were provided check-ups at the ThaiBinh Paediatrics Hospital in the morning.
According to the hospital’s Director Doctor Nguyen ThiMinh Chinh, Thai Binh is among provinces with high prevalence of childrensuffering from congenital heart defects.
The Operation Healthy Heart gave an opportunity for thosefrom difficult backgrounds to receive counselling and treatment for thediseases.
The programme has provided free life-saving surgeries formore than 100 impoverished children in the province to date.
It was initiated by the Viettel Group and VietnamTelevision in 2008 with an aim to support surgery need of disadvantagedchildren under 16 born with heart deformities and help improve local capacityto offer heart screenings to children.
Since then, the Operation Healthy Heart has organised 35screening events across the country with over 47,000 children diagnosed withcongenital heart diseases and 3,500 of them given surgeries. It has also raised120 billion VND in funding for such surgeries.
This was the first time a free heart check-up event heldin Thai Binh and it will run until August 13.-VNA
VNA
