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Gift of life is one of the Rotary Club of Belize's flagship programs. It helps Belizeans get access to pediatric cardiologists and access to care for what is considered the most common congenital defect

Yvette Burkes, Rotarian, Rep, Gift for life
"Belize because of our population, we don't have the volume. We cannot support pediatric cardiology and we cannot support the tremendous expense that goes into a heart surgery for a little tiny baby and in children, so the need is great."

Dr. Jeff Delaney, Pediatric Cardiologist
"If you look at everyone about 8 per thousand or just under 1 per hundred babies is born with some form of congenital heart disease. Some of that is mild. Some of it is very severe, some of it is instantly life-threatening and the babies, unfortunately, don't survive. But approximately one per hundred is a good estimation of how often heart disease occurs, it's very common."

"I think the risk factors, the individual viruses are common bot in developing countries and in countries like the United States. However what might be different is there isn't as much ready access to diagnose if the heart is involve in the infection, so that can be more difficult and then some of the medicines and treatment options may not be available in some of the smaller towns and villages where a person might be, so you never know if one little child is going to get the normal winter cough and cold and another child will get a devastating infection of their heart. Fortunately, that is uncommon, but we see it a lot. If you're in the business you need to be on medicines and treatment if you're going to get through something like that if the heart is severely affected."

And while pediatric cardiologists visit Belize twice a year, this time around the University of Nebraska's Medical Center sent an Infectious disease specialist and a Pediatric Cardiology fellow to coordinate and provide a lecture series to the physicians at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. The hope is that the sensitization will allow them to more easily carry out diagnoses and referrals.

Shirley F. Delair M.D., Pediatric Infectious disease specialist
"Gift of life has been coming to Belize for decades now and Dr. Delaney approached me about being able to have a pediatric cardiology fellows who are trainees come with the program. We have a global health program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center where one of our mission is not only to provide artery needs with the opportunity to go abroad, but also the opportunity to exchange information and do some teaching as well and so I thought this was a great opportunity for our pediatric cardiology fellow to come to Belize and be able to provide some teaching via lecture series format to the local physician staff and trainees here at the hospital. The idea of doing the lecture series is to provide a background information on pediatric cardiology for the staff and the trainees in order to increase their awareness of the diagnoses we are making when we Dr. Delaney see the kids through the Gift of Life Program."

"The idea of doing the lecture series is to increase awareness, so now that the physicians have heard these lectures they can be a little bit more prepared when they examine a child or when the review the history of a child to say hey there may be something that needs to be explored a little further and so Gift of Life come twice a year to Belize so these kids could be referred appropriately during these programs. We are hoping to enhance that."

Dr Kelly Aarsvold, Pediatric Cardiology Fellow
"So there are a lot of different genetic symptoms and we learn more and more about it every year the most common one that we see and I think is true worldwide is down syndrome and so that one has a really high association with heart disease about 50% of those kids will actually have heart disease and so just knowing that right off the bat is a great screening tool we can use to look for kids who have that but there are a number of other genetic syndromes and we learn more and more about it every day."

But what happens after your child is diagnosed with heart disease? We got some perspective from pre-op and post-op patients.

Elizabeth Co, Mother of Patient
"When she was born they said she had a hole and that we needed to take her for a checkup so that's why we brought her here so gift of life said they can help so they checked her and they said that we can do the procedure here."

Cherisse Halsall:
"So how many appointments have you had?"

Elizabeth Co, Mother of Patient
"This is the second one, They will do her surgery tomorrow."

Cherisse Halsall:
"And what have the doctors told you about how much it will improve Mia's quality of life to have this surgery?"

Elizabeth Co, Mother of Patient
"They said it's best we do it so she can perform well so, play and run like everyone else. I was scared, yes but I'm glad for the help and I know that she will be okay now."

Damaris Pech
"Five years ago my parents were to switch doctors, the first day that I was there the doctor told me that I had a hole in my chamber and then they directed me to Ms. Yvette and that's how I found out about gift of life."

"I do remember that my parents did feel super scared and I can imagine it being super scary and super sad but I was young at the time I was eight, I didn't know anything so I would say I didn't really feel anything."

"I'm very grateful for everything they have done I would have probably been dead if they hadn't told me."

"I wouldn't want it to happen to anyone close to me or to me so I could imagine how other families felt about it and it just feels good, it feels great knowing that we have doctors that are capable of these kinds of things and it just brings joy to my heart."

And the visiting doctors say that protecting your child can be as simple as good hygiene. They recommend that parents wash their hands and their children's hands before every meal, limit contact with people who have flu-like symptoms, and ask friends and relatives to wash their hands before holding infant children.