Building pediatric cardiac care
Surprisingly, there are few pediatric cardiac programs in this bustling country of 98 million people. Many children do not receive optimal treatment for congenital heart disease, especially infants in need of critical surgery.
Despite advancements in the last 20 years, many children are never diagnosed or treated, and most will die prematurely.
The need: by the numbers
babies are born with congenital heart disease (CHD) in Vietnam each year
children with CHD were on the waiting list for cardiac surgery in 2019
It was a young child in Vietnam in 1969 that inspired the medical philanthropy that became Children’s HeartLink. What once was an effort by one American doctor to save one child has grown to Vietnamese medical teams performing over 3,000 procedures (including open heart surgeries) in 2020 alone.
Our goal is to develop four Children’s HeartLink Centers of Excellence by 2030.
The most complex heart surgeries are performed only in large urban centers, and they struggle with long patient waiting lists. Provincial and district hospitals largely lack the infrastructure to diagnose and treat congenital heart disease. In 2017, only five centers were equipped to provide surgery for children under the age of 1.
Advocating for change in heart care by partnering with hospitals in Vietnam since 2008.
At Children’s HeartLink Center of Excellence Nhi Dong 1 in Ho Chi Minh City the number of children on the wait list has gone down dramatically since the beginning of our partnership, from an average of 1,000 children waiting up to three years for treatment, down to an average between 90-200 children waiting up to three months.
Children’s HeartLink’s commitment to Vietnam’s developing pediatric cardiac care infrastructure is strong and will remain so until all children have the care they deserve.
Our Partner Hospitals
National Childrens Hospital
2017
26,466
Nhi Dong 1
2008
7,625
