Medical Missions to the Kemerovo Center of Cardiology

Surgeons in the Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease Department of the Kemerovo Center of Cardiology, established in 2005, have been performing open heart surgery only children older than 12 months old.  Many children with congenital heart disease need to be operated on during the first year of life or they will die. Children younger than a year were transported to centers far away for urgently needed surgery and because of transportation problems and the critical condition of these children, many do not survive.

​

At the request of Leonid Barbarash, M.D., Ph.D, the Director of the Kemerovo Center of Cardiology, Dr. William Novick agreed to assist the local physicians in establishing a congenital heart surgery program for neonates, infants and young children.  Additionally, ICHF helped in training local physicians and surgeons.