Zanjireh Omid covers the heavy expenses of Cardiac surgery for at least 30% of our children

In the discussion with Mohammad Reza Mirza, subspecialist in pediatric Cardiac surgery the below subjects were discussed

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Khabaronline news agency n an interview with Dr. Mohammad Reza Mirza Aghayan, head of the Scientific Association of Cardiac Surgeons of Iran and a volunteer Cardiac surgeon of Zanjireh Omid international charity, while addressing the health and treatment situation in Iran, he emphasized the effective role of Zanjireh Omid in the subspecialty treatment of children. In the following, you will read parts of this conversation:

Mohammad Reza Mirza Aghayan's childhood dream was becoming Cardiac surgeon, and since 1999, when he received his general surgery degree from Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, he pursued this dream until today, and he is now the head of the heart surgery department of Tehran Children's Medical Center and performs Cardiac surgery on small heart of children.

Although he sometimes says that he was wrong, but all those children whose hearts have been saved by his help are glad that he still has a scalpel in his hand. Since he performs a large part of difficult and complicated heart surgeries for children voluntarily and free of cost, we went to him to talk about current health issues as the president of the Iranian Cardiac Surgeons Association.

If you agree, let's talk about Zanjireh Omid. Has Zanjireh omid been able to contribute to social justice? And has it been able to help the scientific level of pediatric medicine?

Zanjireh Omid, before starting the health plan, provided a lot of help to families and helped those who could not afford the enormous cost of pediatric Cardiac surgery. The main power is in the hands of the people, which means, first, people help each other, and the government comes second. In fact, those who had a good income helps Zanjireh Omid and Zanjireh Omid helps the people in need. A family that has a sick child, their only concern should be the recovery of their beloved child, in other words, waiting for the treatment or the cost of treatment should not be considered. In some countries, such as France, in addition to free treatment for children, they provide them with affordable accommodation and even transportation tickets. Zanjireh Omid helped to create relative justice because the people who are in good financial situation help the people who are not, and this is the biggest thing that society is obliged to do, the people should help each other.

There are families who cannot take care of their child for any reason, but in fact, the child has an inalienable right to be treated. In 15 or 20 years ago, the health system was such that, unfortunately, poor patients could not be treated, but fortunately, they are treated now. Zanjireh Omid has helped a lot in helping children and has taken effective measures in terms of education. In fact, due to the relation with the Chain of Hope- France and other international partners that Zanjireh Omid has, it has provided (and does) the possibility that one or two of our colleagues are dispatched to France annually to get familiar with the world's current Medical technics and attend courses, or International medical teams from outside of the country being invited to come to Iran, in fact, these carried out activities by Zanjireh Omid will improve our technical and treatment strategies. Zanjireh Omid has provided a lot of assistance in this field, in any case, with the help of Zanjireh Omid, the families had and have peace and knew that there is an institution that has connections with good medical centers and provides a lot of help in this field.

How long have you cooperated voluntarily with Zanjireh Omid?

I got to know Zanjireh Omid from the second half of the 2010’s, due to the structure of healthcare at that time, sick and poor Iranian children and Afghan nationals had to pay a significant amount of treatment costs, patients who were not insured, had to pay the entire cost. If I'm not mistaken, Iranian patients paid 30% of the costs and the rest was covered by the insurance companies. Sometimes the patient's share was a significant amount, for example 4 or 5 million Tomans; Zanjireh Omid covered the entire cost of every patient who did not have enough money. This made us happy because we served all the patients who came to us regardless of their financial status. Whenever he got sick and didn't have financial resources, we would introduce him to Zanjireh Omid and the problem of his treatment would be solved. In short, we could serve all the patients and the conditions were good. Gradually, when the health plan came, these costs decreased; But Zanjireh Omid is still at the service of patients.

In these years, how many children have been returned to normal life with your highly subspecialized operations and how many are under the support of Zanjireh Omid?

About 20 to 30 percent of the patients we operate on are covered by Zanjireh Omid, and every year between 80 and 100 children are operated with the support of Zanjireh Omid without worrying about the cost. Of course, currently, Afghan nationals are the main part of our work and Zanjireh Omid, these people are not accepted for surgery in any other center, in other words, all the centers that perform Cardiac surgery on children tell them that you should go to the medical center, and with the support of Zanjireh Omid, we can offer our services to children regardless of nationality.