The Heart of the Matter

Photograph by John Cushing

For more than 30 years, Children’s HeartLink, in Minneapolis, has been working to prevent and treat heart disease among poor children around the world.

Founded in 1969 by two cardiovascular surgeons, the charity’s original purpose was to bring sick children to the United States for heart surgery. But in recent years, the charity has changed its mission and now focuses on improving cardiovascular care in developing countries.

“There are a lot of very good programs that bring children to the United States for treatment, and in many cases that is the only chance they have,” says Claudia Liebrecht, president of Children’s HeartLink. “But we changed our strategy: If we help these countries gain the skills, they can treat thousands; while bringing them here, we can only treat hundreds. From our perspective, it’s a better solution.”

Children’s HeartLink has provided life-saving heart surgery to more than 1,200 children and arranged for medical professionals to visit hospitals in China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Kenya, Nicaragua, and Ukraine. Last year, those hospitals helped more than 7,000 children.

One child in a hundred is born with a heart defect, Ms. Liebrecht says, and one-third of those defects are so serious that the children could die without treatment.

Here, on a visit to Cali, Colombia, Del Wibben, a nurse at the Mayo Clinic who volunteers for HeartLink, shows 4-year-old Anderson Martinez the fun of blowing bubbles — and at the same time gets him learning to take deep breaths after surgery.