For Rotarians, this act is straight from the heart

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 20

It all started in 1998-99 when members of the local unit of Rotary Club, Chandigarh, decided to start a project to save the lives of little underprivileged children suffering from chronic heart disease and losing life due to financial crunch. 

The project, where from top business honchos down to the common man, donated Rs 100, has a corpus of over 100,000 US dollars.

So far, nearly 700 children have been operated upon for free under the Heart Line project and are leading a healthy life.   Besides the underprivileged children from India, many children from Pakistan and African countries have also received free treatment and got a new lease of life.

Kawal Bedi, who was then the president of the Chandigarh unit of Rotary Club, recalls, “In the beginning, the project was called a ‘Gift of Life’”. But soon, the name was rechristened as Heart Line after we came to know that a foundation in America was operating with the same name (Gift of Life),” said Kawal Bedi

Bedi recalled that past president of Rotary International Rajendra K Saboo had a major role to play in initiating and convincing the club members about the project.  

After deciding to start the project, the club members contacted the governing body of Rotary Club and informed them about the concept. The total cost of the project was pegged at 100,000 dollars. 

“In those days, it was a huge amount and it still is. While half the money was to be given by Rotary International, we had to generate the remaining 50 percent.  Our two Rotary partners, Germany and Japan, offered 12,000 US dollars each. Now, it was up to us to arrange the rest of the money,” said Kawal Bedi.

“We met industrial leaders and people from all walks of life to arrange the fund.  I was surprised when a man came to my house on a bicycle and offered me Rs 100 as donation for the cause. Destiny was kind to us and we somehow managed to collect the fund.  When we went to the bank to deposit the money, the bank manager suggested we create a corpus of the funds. And since then, there has been no looking back. Year after year, we are increasing the number of surgeries,” said Kawal Bedi.

Rotary has signed two memorandum of understanding (MOUs) with the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research  (PGIMER) and Fortis Hospital, Mohali, to carry out the surgeries. 

“The project was started with PGIMER as the partner hospital and later in 2006, Fortis Hospital, Mohali, was also signed up as partner for the project. Currently, most surgeries are being carried out under the observation of noted cardiac surgeon Dr TS Mahant,” said Kawal Bedi.