By
Marwa Nassar
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About 386 million donations have been pooled up to support the establishment of Magdi Yacoub’s new charity heart hospital in Egypt’s Sixth of October city.
The donations will help the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation proceed with its march to offer better health services for Egyptians in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 3 on Good Health and Well-Being.
During the recent Arab Hope Makers 2020 ceremony in Dubai, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohamed Ben Rashid Al Maktoum said about EGP 360 million donations were collected during the ceremony to support the under-construction hospital which is expected to cost 250 million dollars.
Moreover, Businessman Sameeh Sawiris donated about EGP 25.5 million during the ceremony.
Swiris said “he is proud that this important project is being set up in Egypt,” adding that renowned professor of cardiothoracic surgery Magdi Yacoub has a record of philanthropic activities in the fields of health and education.
Meanwhile, famous Egyptian actor Ahmed Helmy announced during the ceremony that he donated EGP 1 million for the under-construction hospital, saying that “I wished I would have donated dlrs 1 million, but let it be in the Egyptian pounds.”
Helmy said he was not planning for this donation, but he felt he wants to do this, considering this as a national duty.
About Magdi Yacoub and his heart foundation
Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, OM, FRS, is now a legend in cardiac surgery. He helped initiate a new era of heart transplantation in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and pioneered surgical techniques such as the Ross procedure, the modern arterial switch, and, more recently, a modified Mustard operation. His achievements have been recognized with a British knighthood and numerous honorary degrees.
The Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Foundation’s Initiative aimed to give hand to children who are born with heart problems in developing countries. About 10 million children every year are born with a congenital heart defect – yet 75% of them, mostly in developing countries, will not have the care they need to survive and thrive into adulthood. The Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Foundation’s Initiative is helping to change their stories.
Through the Aswan Heart Center and future Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Center in Cairo, the foundation supports improved comprehensive, advanced cardiac care that is available to all people in need, free of charge – dramatically changing the health outcomes of the most vulnerable, particularly children, in Egypt and the broader Middle East and Africa.
In 2009, Yacoub established the Aswan Heart Center (AHC) as a project of Chain of Hope, a charity also founded by Yacoub. With a continuing stream of donations from Egyptians rich and poor, as well as partnerships with universities and health care organizations around the world, the AHC is now a tertiary referral center serving patients not only from the Aswan region, but also from other parts of Egypt and Africa. In addition to its 96 patient beds, 2 operating rooms, intensive care facilities, cardiac catheterization laboratories, patient examination rooms, advanced imaging facility, and 100-seat auditorium, the center houses life sciences and biomedical engineering laboratories.
Each year, AHC clinicians perform approximately 1,100 open-heart operations and 3,000 cardiac catheterizations, with approximately 25,000 consultations taking place in outpatient clinics. The AHC’s primary percutaneous coronary intervention service is the only program of its kind within a 250-mile radius and serves a population of 2,000,000.
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