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A heart-related disease is devastating the population of Bolivia, leaving hundreds of thousands in need of a pacemaker. Our foundation wants to provide a pacemaker for patients, who are unable to afford one.
This life-altering disease is called Chagas, caused by a parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, and is transmitted from a reduviid bug, also known as the kissing bug. In Bolivia, there are 1.8 million people infected with the disease, the highest rate in the world. Another 3.7 million are at risk of being infected.
This disease has the ability to affect many organs including the heart. Complications of the heart include; abnormally enlarging the heart causing heart failure, abnormal rhythms of the heart, and conduction disturbances.
Paz- Echad saw a great need in this part of the world as impoverished people have no means to afford the life-saving device, a pacemaker.
In our efforts to help give care to these people, we would like to raise money to accommodate the costs of the pacemakers, procedure rooms, and medical supplies that will be needed. Please, join us in helping save lives in Bolivia.
Last year, our first project to place pacemakers, with the aid of volunteer Dr. Schoondyke and Julie Bentley NP of Karing Hearts Cardiology of Johnson City, TN, was a huge success. Fifty-one pacemakers were placed on patients with Chagas disease! This is a lifesaving procedure, and all patients/families were truly very grateful.
There are many beautiful testimonies from all the patients, who we encountered, but one, in particular, stands out. A young woman in her late 30s needed a second pacemaker. She received her first pacemaker in her late 20s when she was first diagnosed with Chagas. Later she needed a replacement and was very concerned since she had lost her own mother to Chagas. Her mother was 35 years old when she passed away from Chagas because they could not afford a pacemaker for her. Our patient was left motherless at age of 5, and now as a mother, she was concerned about her children’s future. The foundation was able to provide her with the pacemaker procedure, and she is so grateful that she will be able to continue to live a life of quality as a wife and mother to her children.
