As a second-year cardiovascular resident at Harvard, Dr. Douglas Lowell, an Arizona native, was troubled to know kids in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico were dying of relatively simple reversible heart defects.
In his mind he imagined a program working with University Medical Center and Tucson Medical Center to host, operate and care for indigent kids from northern Mexico. He and others would donate their time and skills.
After starting his practice in Tucson he hoped to fulfill his dream, but couldn't find funding for this program. A concurrent major peso devaluation in 1994 necessitated a complete change of plans.
Don Shropshire, CEO of Tucson Medical Center and a past president of Tucson Rotary Club of Tucson, suggested Lowell contact Rotary as a partner and possible source of funding.
Gard Pierce, a club member who had previously established a cross-border project with San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico, jumped at the chance to head this new program. It would be designed to train, equip and educate the Mexican medical team in Hermosillo in the latest techniques regarding care of children born with heart problems.
Many in Rotary Club of Tucson were the nuts and bolts of making the program successful and were our pilots for our many cross-border trips.
The Rotary Club of Hermosillo Pitic, was also critical to the success of this project. An assessment of the needs to upgrade the facilities of the Hermosillo hospital revealed the need for an $112,000 Eco-Doppler, a noninvasive cardiac diagnostic machine.
Gard Pierce applied for and received a matching Rotary International grant for $50,000 with the clubs in local District 5500 raising the matching $50,000.
Prior to this machine, 94% of the children with congenital heart disease had a cardiac catheterization, an extremely dangerous, tedious and less exacting method of determining a diagnosis. In the nine months after the arrival of the Doppler, 1,325 children's heart defects were correctly diagnosed with only 2% needing catheterization.
The major funding to carry out this five-year program was a Rotary International 3HHH grant for $286,000. It was one of the few Health, Hunger and Humanity grants ever awarded in
Arizona, of course orchestrated by Gard Pierce.
Of critical importance was the training of the pediatric hospital staff. A home was rented near TMC and cardiac surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, hospital administrators and others were brought to Tucson for over 1,800 hours of specialized continuing education and clinical experience at TMC and UMC.
Over 600 primary care physicians, nurses and midwives in northern Mexico were trained on the identification of congenital heart disease. Over $70,000 of specialized monitoring and other equipment was donated to the Hospital Infantil. Many difficulties were encountered in trying to give this equipment and transfer money to the hospital in Mexico.
During this program almost 5,000 children had their cardiac problems diagnosed. Surgery was performed on 209 children in Mexico, with the mortality rate for these surgeries dropping 70% from the inception of the program.
A cardiac specialist was brought up from Mexico City to continue care after Rotary departed. A beautiful Rotary example of teaching someone to fish.