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Meet Dr. Gopi Nallaiyan and Dr. Hemapriya Natesan – the doctors who left their well-paying jobs to start a foundation to treat underprivileged children with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD), for free. CHD is a defect in the structure of the heart and is present in patients from the time of birth.
The need for Congenital Heart Disease Awareness:
2 out of every 100 children are diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and 78,000 babies die every year due to CHD. The numbers are huge and shocking. We’re losing young lives every day and awareness will play a huge role in helping these numbers come down drastically.
Dr. Gopi Nallaiyan, a paediatric cardiac surgeon, and his wife Dr. Hemapriya Natesan are the founders of Little Moppet Heart Foundation. The need for Congenital Heart Disease Awareness:
2 out of every 100 children are diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and 78,000 babies die every year due to CHD. The numbers are huge and shocking. We’re losing young lives every day and awareness will play a huge role in helping these numbers come down drastically.
With this foundation, the couple aims to provide financial and medical support to underprivileged children suffering from CHD.
The Little Moppet Heart Foundation exists with the sole view of spreading awareness about Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and more importantly, providing free medical and surgical treatment for them so they can lead a healthy and happy life.
The Little Moppet Heart Foundation organizes camps throughout Tamil Nadu to screen children, identify patients with CHD and provide them with free treatment while also counselling their parents so they can improve their overall quality of life.
Dr. Gopi Nalliyan and Dr. Hemapriya at a camp in rural Tamil Nadu, checking children for Congenital Heart Disease
“In 2015, I met a sweet, bright 6-year old girl with an inevitable fate – an early death. The saddest part was that though she’d been diagnosed with congenital heart disease when she was 6 months, her parents didn’t know where to go, what to do or who to approach. Seeing SO many patients like this little girl while being a father to two little children of my own, I knew I had to do something. It wasn’t an easy decision to quit a well-paying job and start an NGO, but I had to stop feeling helpless and standing by watching the lives of these bright, beautiful children being snuffed out by CHD", says Dr. Gopi Nalliyan
They also intend to create awareness campaigns for pregnant women and parents so that they know that Congenital Heart Disease is curable and it is super important that it be detected and treated early.
They’ve conducted 14 camps till date with 101 surgeries and over 11,500 screenings.
Their vision is to ensure every parent, especially those in the lower socio-economic strata, is aware of congenital heart disease and understands the importance of early diagnosis and treatment while making the treatment for CHD easily and freely accessible.
Why reach out to Rural communities
Reaching out to the children in the lower socio-economic strata who need CHD diagnosis and treatment is vital because their families are daily wage labourers who can barely afford to eat a full meal a day. They need our help because their families cannot afford to lose several working days hunting for hospitals and searching for free treatment.
Plan of Action
The Better India is helping Little Moppet Heart Foundation conduct surgeries. The minimum cost of each surgery is Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 1.5 lakh.
We need your support to help us -:
1. Create awareness about Congenital Heart Disease.
2. Raise funds for providing free treatment and consultation to children suffering from Congenital Heart Disease.
