Italian doctors perform life-saving heart surgeries for children in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Italian medical team is performing life-saving heart surgeries on children in the Kurdistan Region, offering treatment to families who cannot afford complex cardiac care and have waited years for help.

Among the patients is 11-year-old Aydin Marouf from Shingal (Sinjar), a town in Nineveh province that was overrun by the Islamic State group in 2014. After more than a decade of living with congenital heart disease, Marouf underwent successful open-heart surgery on Tuesday, carried out by the visiting Italian surgeons.

Wearing a hospital gown as he prepared for the operation, Marouf spoke of the limitations his condition had placed on his childhood.
"When I wanted to jump, I couldn't. Thankfully, now they will treat me and I will be healed and I will be able to play football with my friends." Marouf said before heading to the surgery room.

The six-member Italian team, consisting of at least two surgeons from Giannina Gaslini Institute in Genova, plans to perform nearly a dozen heart surgeries and conduct at least 50 medical diagnoses, focusing on children with complex and high-risk conditions.

Dr. Francesco Santoro, a leading member of the mission, has traveled to the Kurdistan Region at least 15 times and has performed around 100 surgeries over the years.

He said the team’s repeated visits are aimed at supporting local medical staff and tackling the most challenging cases.
"It's for that [reason] we come every six months, every four months just to give support to the local team to perform the most difficult cases in terms of weight and in terms of pathology." Santoro told Rudaw.

The team arrived in the Kurdistan Region over the weekend in coordination with the local non-profit Heevie organization, which helped arrange the mission and identify patients in need of urgent care.

The costs of the medical mission are being covered by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, enabling the visiting doctors to provide specialized treatment free of charge to vulnerable families.

The Italian team will conclude the visit to the Region on 15 Feb.

Naif Ramadhan contributed to this article from Duhok, Kurdistan Region.