Israeli heart doctor flies 2,500 miles to help save 11-day-old baby in Rwanda

An Israeli heart specialist flew more than 2,500 miles to Rwanda to help save an 11-day-old baby before returning home the same day.

Dr Sagi Assa, a senior paediatric cardiologist at Wolfson Medical Centre, travelled to Kigali after being contacted by Dr Gerard Misago, the first Rwandan interventional paediatric cardiologist trained in Israel through Save a Child’s Heart.

The newborn, Angel, had been born with critical pulmonary valve stenosis, a rare heart defect which was preventing blood from reaching his lungs.

His parents, who live in a remote part of Rwanda, had taken their son through four regional hospitals before reaching King Faisal Hospital in Kigali, where he arrived critically ill.

Misago, who recently returned home after completing a three-year fellowship with the Israeli humanitarian organisation, contacted Assa, his former mentor, because of the risks involved in treating such a small baby.

Assa left Tel Aviv at midnight, travelling via Addis Ababa, and arrived in Kigali at 10am.

“Because it’s a high-risk procedure with high mortality, we felt we should do it together in Rwanda for the first time,” Assa said.

“I took on the challenge and left at midnight from Tel Aviv through Addis Ababa to Kigali, landing at 10am. We performed the procedure together – mainly led by Dr Gerard – and successfully dilated the baby’s pulmonary valve.”

The doctors carried out a balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty, using a catheter to open the narrowed valve rather than performing open-heart surgery.

Angel weighed just 2.6kg, making the procedure particularly delicate. Misago led the intervention alongside Assa and paediatric cardiac anaesthesiologist Dr Christine Niyibogora, who was also trained in Israel through Save a Child’s Heart.

Within hours, Angel was stable, breathing without a ventilator and back with his mother to feed.

Assa then began his journey back to Israel, completing the mission in less than 30 hours.

But he said the significance of the operation went beyond saving one child. For him, it demonstrated that years spent training Rwandan specialists in Israel were now allowing complex treatment to be delivered locally.

“More than saving Angel’s life – which brings us immense joy – this mission represents a defining moment of self-reliance,” Assa said. “This was the culmination of three years of training and partnership. Seeing Dr Gerard and his team perform so exceptionally under high pressure proves that Rwanda now has the local capability and confidence to treat complex heart conditions independently.”

He added: “A mentor’s job is to make you independent, not to keep you reliant.”

Save a Child’s Heart executive director Simon Fisher said the operation marked “a key milestone in the independent paediatric cardiology programme in Kigali”, helping children with congenital heart conditions receive specialist treatment without having to leave Rwanda.

Founded in Israel in 1995, Save a Child’s Heart says it has treated more than 8,500 children from 75 countries and trains medical professionals from overseas to develop paediatric cardiac services in their own countries.