Sponsor a Syrian Heart

Though I will be spending Christmas Day 2017 in the cold in Syria, I would like to bring some seasonal cheer there by sponsoring children to get heart operations. The surgeons will do the work for free and the hospital needs US$4,000 to cover expenses for each child they operate on.

Though this will be my ninth visit to Syria during the current Crisis, the situation shows no signs of abating. Although deals will eventually be cut at tables, the poorest and most vulnerable will get little from them. Children die because once routine operations like these are no longer affordable to the hospitals, the families and the surgeons, all of whom have run out of money. Children die because powerful people wish them to die.

You can help change that by donating to this appeal. Here is the deal. I will go to Syria a few days before Christmas and hand the money over to the hospital and have senior surgeons and religious figures receipt it. As I will pay my own way and my keep, anything you give will go to sponsoring a young heart and giving that child hope and life. That is money well-spent.

Dr Declan Hayes

Raheny