Italy's favourite son, finally moving out - The Florentine

14
Thursday 7 September 2006
UP CLOSE & PERSONAL
An
Interview
with
Dr. Alessandro
Frigiola
‘To be able to save their lives, to see the smiles in
their eyes and in the eyes of their parents, is a
great joy and very satisfying.’
Dr. Alessandro Frigiola, head surgeon
at San Donato General Hospital
in San Donato Milanese, decided
to found the Associazione Bambini
Cardiopatici nel Mondo (Association
for Children with Heart Disease) in
1982 after his experience in Vietnam,
where he spent a month witnessing
the deaths of dozens of children born
with heart disease. Dr. Frigiola felt it
was his duty to strike out against what
he considered a ‘moral injustice.’ He
started to offer his services in centres
around the world—centres that were
being forced to operate without suffi
cient funds or adequate facilities. In
1992, he received an offi cial invitation
to travel with his team to Egypt
and serve at the University Hospital
of Cairo. That same year, he founded
Bambini Cardiopatici nel Mondo—a
charity association that was presented
to the press in March 1994.
Bambini Cardiopatici nel Mondo
operates in Italy and abroad, lending
it services primarily to underdeveloped
countries that lack the staff, hospital
facilities and equipment needed to
supply life-saving heart treatments.
The association’s mission is to perform
heart surgery on children affl icted
with complex congenital heart disease,
and to aid young patients during their
post-surgery recovery stage. Bambini
Cardiopatici nel Mondo also supplies
the technical equipment necessary for
said operations and organizes training
courses on various medical disciplines
within these foreign communities. In
Italy, the association provides scholarships
to foreign doctors to prepare
themselves professionally in the fi eld
of heart-surgery and return to their own
countries of origin with the benefi t of
life-saving knowledge and expertise.
Dr. Alessandro Frigiola will be in
Florence on Sept. 16 to speak at the
benefi t dinner sponsored by Mabel
Srl. The event, which includes a musical
performance featuring ‘Verdi e
l’animo umano’ and a dinner organised
by Guido Guidi, will be hosted
at the Istituto Universitario Europeo in
its famous Badia Fiesolana. All funds
collected from ticket sales will be
donated to the Associazione Bambini
Cardiopatici nel Mondo to support its
initiatives in Italy and abroad.
The Florentine: What is the
most important thing that needs
to be done for the children your
association serves?
Dr. Alessandro Frigiola: It’s crucial
for us to develop an informationspreading
campaign which will help
the association achieve its objective—
namely to sustain an international
organization dedicated to children
with heart disease. We are working to
coordinate projects in at least 20 to 25
countries throughout the world. Our
ultimate goal over the next ten years
is to help these countries become
autonomous when it comes to treating
children with heart disease. The project
has an estimated overall cost of 40
million euro—which is really quite low
if you consider how many millions of
euro get invested in absolutely futile
projects.
TF: What have been the
difficulties in finding funding for
this project?
AF: There have been enormous
diffi culties involved in developing this
project, and many limitations still exist
because the association is supported
entirely by donations from individual
citizens and fund-raising initiatives—
like the one supporters decided to
organise in Florence on Sept. 16.
Our association is beyond the scope
of politics and religion and doesn’t
receive government funding.
TF: What has been your best
experience throughout the course
of this project?
AF: I have had many beautiful
experiences...I work in poor countries
where people don’t have a thing—where
children, and not only children, die
because they don’t have the possibility
of treatment. To be able to save their
lives, to see the smiles in their eyes and
in the eyes of their parents, is a great
joy and very satisfying.
TF: What kind of response
have you received from the
governments of the countries
where you’ve worked?
www.theflorentine.net
AF: We have always been welcome
and have received a lot of support from
the governments of the countries we
have gone to work in.
TF: What would you like to do
to strengthen the organization?
What needs to be done? What’s
missing?
AF: As I have already said, our goal
is to create an international heart
organisation; to achieve this objective,
we need to come up with funds so
that we can continue to train heart
surgeons, cardiologists, anaesthetic
experts and nurses—in hopes that they
may become autonomous within their
own countries.
TF: How has your life changed
since you founded Bambini
Cardiopatici nel Mondo?
AF: My life has changed quite a bit
since I established this association, not
only because I work a lot, but because
I have learned to value some aspects
of life that we often take for granted or
forget about. I can no longer stand the
proliferation of certain injustices that
have become intolerable to me.
TF: What would you like our
readers to know about this
association?
AF: First and foremost, I would like the
readers of The Florentine to know that
Bambini Cardiopatici nel Mondo goes
beyond politics, religion and ethnicity—
and that according to the latest reports
by the World Health Organisation 2.5
million children with heart disease
are waiting for treatment. If they don’t
receive surgery, 70 percent of these
children die.
For more information about Bambini
Cardiopatici nel Mondo write to:
info@bambinicardiopatici.it
www.bambinicardiopatici.it
To participate in the Florentine Benefi t
Dinner:
Contact: Anna Mollo
mollo@mabelweb.it