CardiacEye International Foundation- A Heart Charity

CardiacEye International Foundation (CEIF; www.cardiaceye.com) is a newly formed independent, non-governmental, nonprofit organization established to provide free and affordable adult and pediatric heart surgeries around the world. CEIF is the brainchild of Dr. Maqsood Elahi (MBBS,FRCSI, PhD), a fellow of the ICS and ICS Institutional Regent for Central Texas. Dr. Elahi is an adult and pediatric heart surgeon who encouraged a group of nurses, doctors and other health professionals from different backgrounds to volunteer their skills and expertise to improve the lives of children and adults suffering from heart disease.

The Foundation aims to carry out specific missions in education, research and provision of life saving cardiac surgery solutions wherever there may be a need in developing countries. The Foundation facilitates the teaching of required skills and infrastructure to allow cardiac centers to perform more complex heart operations. Dr Elahi has taken surgical teams to the chosen centers and provides a multidisciplinary cardiac surgery team that closely work with local cardiac surgeons and nurses. CEIF uses the local facilities for the above purpose and provides advanced surgical skills and the links for collaborative research.

Currently, CardiacEye International has three public officers around the world. They are; (1) Dr. Bashir M. Matata (PhD, FRS-Med) who is a clinician scientist, an epidemiology and public health specialist in the UK and is helping the East African CEIF office. Originating from Kenya, Dr Matata has a large portfolio of research (Honorary/Visiting Professorship) and clinical activities within the field of cardiovascular health in United Kingdom and in Kenya. The CIEF main aspiration in East Africa is to work collaboratively with communities to reduce the risk of the emerging epidemics of circulatory and respiratory diseases; a problem exacerbated by poor amenable public health education and skilled professionals in this field and lack of access to treatment in publically-funded hospitals with modern facilities. Therefore, the initial East African CEIF project is to implement a rural-based 50-bed hospital unit complete with screening facilities, surgical suites, and public/health advisory center within the coastal region of Kenya. This initial project would be the catalyst for future development of similar rural-based facilities (2) Ms. Rose Marie Lillo Godoy, a registered nurse and cardiovascular critical care educator, is facilitating the Australian CEIF public office. In 2011 she visited her home country’s neighbor Peru to establish the first collaborative links between CEIF and Instituto Nacional del Niño en Lima. The 2014, Peru Project of helping little hearts thus aims to save the lives of children with heart disease, to establish the basis for collaborative research and to provide needed resources and training at the local level. The Institute Nacional del Niño has about 500 children on its waiting list for heart surgery.  Currently some of these children would simply die due to the lack of resources and advanced skills and (3) Mr. Asim Haroon who is a software engineer and an educator who works for the Pakistani CEIF public office.  He is eagerly involved in CEIF Pakistan “Little Hearts Project 2015”. This project will follow the steps of the Peruvian Heart Project and he is currently working in establishing collaborative links between CEIF and other Pakistani-based community initiatives in the city of Lahore, Pakistan.

CEIF believes that all these free heart surgeries would not be possible without the help of a diverse of stakeholder communities including ICS and the group of wonderful volunteers who donate their time and energy to the CEIF cause. “As Little Hearts’ 2015” projects are approaching we are conscious that more work is needed and therefore CEIF is currently raising funds and selecting and recruiting skillful professionals for these missions.

Click here to learn about the inaugural mission of CardiacEye International Foundation in Pakistan

http://www.ficsonline.org/files/public/CEIF_PAKISTAN_ICS_042314.pdf