News from Tao

Tao has become a child like any other, full of life.

01/09/20 – Tao is out of danger

Mariela, open-heart surgery in Madagascar

Thanks to your mobilization, Tao is now out of danger. He was operated on in time by Vietnamese doctors trained in the past by La Chaîne de l’Espoir.

The little boy is breathing normally and has a healthy appetite, much to his parents’ delight. We wish him a happy new life with his family.

02/06/20 – Tao needs us

In Vietnam, the Covid-19 pandemic slowed down our care considerably. As a result of this health crisis, the list of small patients to be operated on locally has grown considerably.

Today, operations are gradually resuming. We can now make up for lost time and help a 16-month-old boy: Tao.

Tao lives with his parents and three siblings in the Vietnamese highlands, near the town of Buon Ma Thuot, the local coffee capital. This little Vietnamese boy was born with a pathology that exhausts him at every moment and threatens his life.

Worried, her parents decided to take her to the nearest doctor in the village. After consultation, unsure of the diagnosis, they turned to Sister Pascale. This nun, who devotes her life to sick children, runs a dispensary near the hospital in Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville and is in constant contact with the local communities. Sister Pascale organized the bus journey from Buon Ma Thuot to the capital, so that Tao could be examined by Dr Phuong, a heart surgeon trained some twenty years ago by Professor Alain Deloche.

Dr Phuong’s verdict was clear: Tao has a double heart defect. Only open-heart surgery can save him. And it must be done quickly.

Tao’s family farms a small plot of land on which they produce coffee. As well as being difficult, this work barely supports the father, mother and four children. In fact, their coffee crop earns the family the equivalent of 790 euros a year! This meagre income is far from enough to consider surgery…