Giving Back

Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect in the world, impacting nearly 1% of all live births. Over 90% of children in the world who are in need of a surgical intervention for congenital heart disease do not have access to care. That’s why University Children’s Health Heart Center has been committed to several humanitarian endeavors to narrow the global disparity in the delivery of congenital cardiac care.

HeartGift San Antonio

HeartGift, San Antonio was established in 2008. Its purpose is to bring children from underserved regions of the world to San Antonio for corrective heart surgery. To date, our program has performed corrective surgery on 43 patients. Since our partnership with University Health, we have performed corrective surgery on 13 patients from seven different countries including:

• Bolivia
• Honduras
• Jamaica
• Kenya
• Mongolia
• Philippines
• Uganda

Medical Humanitarian Trip to Palestine and the Gaza Strip

In October of 2015, a nine-person team from San Antonio and University Health/UT Health San Antonio, embarked on a 10-day trip to the Gaza Strip and performed corrective surgical procedures on nine children with congenital heart disease. This is the sixth time a trip has been made by team members to the Middle East with a total of 81 patients receiving surgical intervention.

Medical Humanitarian Trip to Lima, Peru

In January of 2016, our seven-person team embarked upon a 10-day trip to Lima, Peru and performed corrective surgical procedures on children with congenital heart disease.