By Tien-Shun Lee
A 3-year-old Chinese orphan who was born with a heart defect was ready to return to her native country this week after undergoing a lifesaving operation at Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park.
The operation was paid for by the Rotary International’s Gift of Life, a program that aims to help children from all over the world who need heart surgery.
“She was quite blue when she first came to the U.S. Her blood flow was abnormal,” said Dr. Frederick Bierman, the director of pediatric cardiology at Schneider Children’s Hospital, who oversaw the treatment of Shaoke Xing, an orphan who was found abandoned in the street by a policeman in Xing Tai, China, when she was 5 months old. “If this had gone on, she could have had episodes of loss of consciousness, strokes or devastating neurologic injuries.”
Now that Shaoke, also known as “Yun Yun,” has undergone an operation to close a hole between the lower two chambers of her heart, she will be able to run, join her friends and lead a normal life, Bierman added.
“In all likelihood, this is the only heart surgery she will need to have,” said Shaoke’s surgeon, Shiel Vatsia, who performed the three-hour operation on Jan. 24 to correct her condition, known as tetralogy of Fallot.
Shaoke is the 18th Chinese child to be brought to the United States for heart surgery since the Chinese Gift of Life started in June 2000 with a medical mission’s trip to China, led by Rotary International member Sammy Hsiao.
During the June 2000 trip, a team of eight medical workers, including a surgeon, assistant surgeon and a cardiologist, performed heart surgery on 14 Chinese children in Hebei Children’s Hospital. The team also talked with hospital administrators and medical workers to establish a program to send select children with heart defects to the United States for operations.
Shaoke’s caretakers at her orphanage in Hebei found out about the Gift of Life program through an advertisement in a Chinese newspaper. The orphanage applied to the program, and Shaoke was one out of 400 applicants selected to be brought to the United States for surgery. One reason she was chosen by the selection team was because her chances of being helped by the operation were extremely good.
“She was in a lot of pain. Now she’s very alert, very happy,” said Shaoke’s guardian, Ping Guo, who was housed in the Ronald McDonald house during her stay in the country. “Americans are very, very warm. We are grateful for all the loving hearts who helped us.”
Before her operation, Shaoke was constantly short of breath and had to sit down all the time, Hsiao said. Now that she was cured of her heart defect, her chances of being adopted soon were very good, he added.
The medical costs for each Gift of Life child is about $5,000, Hsiao said. Other costs, including plane tickets and housing in the United States, are usually paid for by the Rotary Club in the child’s native country. In Shaoke’s case, travel expenses were paid for by the Hebei government.
In addition to bringing children into the United States for operations, the Chinese Gift of Life program has also funded about 100 heart operations for children at Chinese hospitals in Hebei and Shanghai within the past 2 1/2 years. Chinese children in need of heart operations often do not have access to good medical facilities in their country because of limited resources, Vatsia said.
In addition to its program in China, the Rotary Club International also operates Gift of Life programs in more than 25 other countries, including Russia, India, Malaysia and the Dominican Republic.
Reach reporter Tien-Shun Lee by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
