Heritage Snapshot: Part 95

Loma Linda University Medical Center established the Open Hearts for Children Fund in response to numerous requests from around the world. Inquiries came from concerned physicians who had witnessed firsthand the tragedy of abbreviated life without proper medical attention. Hopefully, the fund would perpetuate the Open Hearts for Children program, making hospitalization for such surgeries available indefinitely. To launch the fund, Medical Center physicians, including pediatric cardiologists, anesthesiologists, cardiac surgeons, and others, donated their services, and the Medical Center covered the hospital costs from its limited charity fund. It became the Medical Center’s first endowed program and is maintained today entirely by charitable donations. Sponsoring families in the community cover the costs of housing, food, local transportation, and other living expenses while the children are in America. The Medical Center inaugurated its Open Hearts for Children program, inspired by a plea from the International Human Assistance Programs, Inc. of New York, and others. It came as a response to the United Nations focus on 1979 as the International Year of the Child. The Medical Center organized its Congenital Cardiac Surgery Program in April, 1976, under Leonard L. Bailey, MD, At the time Director of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. Eugene L. Petry, MD, Director of Pediatric Cardiology, contributed to the success of the program with a well-developed protocol for cardiac diagnosis. Television cameramen and newspaper photographers met a bewildered little girl with blue lips as she arrived with her escort aboard a jetliner at Los Angeles International Airport on December 19, 1979. Jeon Suk Kang, the 9-year-old from Pusan, South Korea, left the United States three months later with a mended heart, pink lips, a scrapbook full of pictures, and a memory of unforgettable experiences. Above all, she departed with an excellent opportunity to lead a normal, healthy life. Jeon Suk became the first beneficiary of the Open Hearts for Children Fund, a community-supported assistance fund which makes life-saving heart surgery available free of charge to children from developing countries. The organization serves areas of the world where such procedures are unavailable. American children who need this life-saving surgery are covered by private funds, private insurance, or state aid. No financial provisions for correctable heart defects, however, are available in many other countries. The Medical Center admitted Jeon Suk on December 26, 1979. She weighed only 44 pounds. Due to a limited medical history, extensive testing documented her problem as a severe form of Tetralogy of Fallot; four congenital heart defects. Poor circulation and an insufficiency of oxygen in her blood had caused her lips to turn blue and shadowy circles developed around her dark eyes. Without surgery she could have lived only a few more years, at most. On January 3, 1980, nurses wheeled Jeon Suk into surgery accompanied by a TV reporter and camera crew. Never before had such a procedure been videotaped at the Medical Center for a TV audience. That night KABC TV’s Eyewitness News featured the pretty little Korean and her heart surgery throughout Southern California. Hi Taik Kim, a Korean social worker at the Medical Center, provided liaison between, Jeon Suk’s family and the Medical Center. He watched over the brave little girl with father-like concern, sometimes admonishing well-wishers to consider the overwhelming cultural shock she was experiencing. Kim also explained medical procedures to the little girl to help her understand what was being done for her. Korean nursing students and other Medical Center personnel who could speak her language helped him. Jeon Suk boarded a jetliner for Seoul Korea on April 3, 1980, after her physicians pronounced her fit for travel. She was skipping and jumping, ordinary activities she was unable to do before coming to America. Patients from the Open Hearts for Children program become highly motivated by their experience. They return home physically capable and inspired to give back to their society. They have been touched by love. Their human brothers and sisters have reached around the world to give them life. In 1994 Jeon Suk wrote to Dr. Bailey. Her letter brings the Open Hearts for Children program full circle. “How are you, Dr. Bailey?” she wrote. “I’m living very healthy and very active because of you. At the time I received the surgery from you, I was in the second grade in elementary school. That was 15 years ago when I was a little girl. Now I’m a lady. This is all because of you. “I always appreciate what you did for me. I think about it all the time. Even though I went there (United States) because I was sick, I have a beautiful memory of when I was in America. And I will never forget you. I enjoy my job because I work with patients. I was sick too—so I think this is a job God gave me. Once more, I’m so thankful to you for saving my life.” Dr. Bailey acknowledges that the Open Hearts for Children program provides a wonderful opportunity to deliver Christian healthcare to desperate parents and their frequently hopeless children. Many, like Jeon Suk, have found new meaning in their lives and are now filled with anticipation and promise. Service through Open Hearts for Children provides a very special blessing for the medical personnel, contributors, and community hosts who have been involved.