Updates on Centennial Projects

Rotary’s Heart for Little Angels

Latest Update: Hearts for Little Angels - Getting back on track

Where we started

Project was brought to RCM by Lance Masters through his cooperation with Joyce Alumno and Save the Little Heart project supported by Indian donor Dr Moopen. This project was focused on support of individual patients which were referred to project members individually and team was individually trying to support these applicants. If there was cheaper solution to bring the patient to India, it was done that way like in case of Joneil. We included project to the list of Centennial projects and Obet was assigned as project Chairman. Since Lance and Obet were on long term leave from the club activities due to personal and family health issues, project needed a new impulse. To move forward we restructured Project Committee that consist of following members (In brackets are main responsibilities of committee members): Chairman - Zdenek Jankovsky (Fundraising and Communication with patients and hospitals), Deputy Chairman – Rosel Doval Santos (Communication with patients and hospitals), Co-Chairman - Oscar Del Rosario (RCM internal communication), Co-Chairman Lance Masters (RI Grant and Foreign relations), Members – Johnny Chotrani (Fundraising and Foreign relations), John Michael Cutter (Communication with patients), Ludek Vrana (Legal).

It was initial intention of the Hearts for Little Angels committee, to identify patients that needs support and help them individually. Unfortunately, this process has few issues.

Project Concerns

1. Project resources - Committee would need to communicate with applicants, support them in the process of application for PhilHealth support, PCSO support, communicate with hospitals … . This requires medical knowledge and detail understanding of legal process for application for other charity sources. We don’t have these resources, this is not scalable process.

2. Legal risks connected with “recommendation” for patient to undergo open heart surgery. Unfortunately, some of the conditions are so complicated that some of the patients do not survive.

3. Skipping the line – There is no need for Rotary or other organizations to source for the patients and try to help sourced patients to skip the line. Doctors from the hospitals do not appreciate this skip the line approach. There are hundreds or thousands of kids that are waiting for their surgery in PHC, PGH and NCH. Surgery of life threatening conditions like Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF) or Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) cost 400.000 – 750.000. If patient can cover the surgery, he/she will be accommodated in matter of days, if he/she can secure funding for the part that is above PhilHealth support (in case of ToF it is around 300.000) he/she can be accommodated in 1-2 months, charity patients are waiting for 2 years or even more. And also those in charity line need financial support for the last mile. We should support those who need it most based on professional assessment of doctors in the hospital and not push someone to skip the line because they learned about our project.

4. Rotary brand with cardiologist – Another issue we unfortunately face is the brand that Rotary clubs have built with hospitals. Many people came to them in the past and offered help, take pictures with kids and come back with a little help at the most and very fast disappear. Which disappointed those who were trying to cooperate in the past.

New Project Set up

Thanks to support from Rtn Rosel we got in touch with Dr Jonas Del Rosario from Philippine General Hospital (PGH) who helps Zdenek to persuade PGH cardiologists and surgeons that RCM is here to really help those in need. We are setting up process that will be supporting those who need help most. RCM should focus on fundraising and review of support allocated by PGH from funds donated by the club. PGH will offer help from RCM to those patients that need it most based on decision of the cardiologist of PGH within budget and eligibility requirements of RCM. PGH will provide regular reports (at least after every 500.000 PHP spent) to RCM how the funds were used. Should there be some deviations from our expectations, it needs to be corrected for future batch or help might be put on hold. Reports per patient will be signed by parents/ guardians of the patient and accompanied by photos of the child and approval for including the story of the child on www.littleheart.ph and other official materials of RCM.

Pilot of the new process

Zdenek decided to pilot this process with PGH and provided personal donation of 100.000 PHP for this stage. First patient receiving the support is Amer Balangue from Marawi. PGH and National Children Hospital (NCH) also have Zdenek’s phone number and they call in emergency cases when patient needs to raise last minute some type of blood.

1. Daniel – 2 y/o now healthy boy from Kalibo – B+ which Home Credit employees delivered to NCH

2. Jaden – 5 months old who unfortunately passed away few days after surgery – B+ which Home Credit delivered to NCH

3. Liam – 9 y/o now doing well after surgery from Kalibo - AB+/B+/0+ which Home Credit donated to PGH

4. Thara – 8 y/o getting her surgery on December 5 from Zamboanga – A+ which Home Credit delivered to NCH

We are now preparing project for creating a blood bank for RCM beneficiaries from Home Credit employees’ donations.

Project Future - PGH

1. Signing of MOU with PGH that defines eligibility criteria for utilization of the support

2. 1st stage of raising funds to add on top of personal donation from Zdenek and provide first 500K as deposit to PGH for the first stage of the project. Majority of this was already raised internally from personal donations of members

3. 2nd stage of fundraising – Contact potential major donors with solicitation letters.

4. Find some foreign Rotary club to join RCM for Global grant application

5. Prepare Global grant application to multiply funds raised locally

Project Future – PHC/NCH

Once we are up and running with PGH in smaller scale we try to onboard also Philippines Heart Center (PHC) and NCH which are now reluctant to cooperate with us.

1. Depending on result of 2nd stage of fundraising with PGH we can decide to extend some of the extra funds raised for PGH project to reallocate to PHC/NCH

2. Enter to similar project as with PGH

3. Additional fundraising activities and application for RI global grant to follow.

Rtn. Zdenek Jankovsky attended the club meeting of the Rotary Club of Prague Platinum last November 30, 2018 at Prague, Czech Republic. This serves as his make up.

Rotary Club of Manila Educational Assistance Program (REAP)

Latest Update: President Susing Pineda conveys his earnest appeal for more benefactors for the project.

Other updates will be discussed extensively in today’s Town Hall Meeting.