On Wednesday afternoon, representatives from the Sympathetic Hearts Foundation donated an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine, and 5 neonatal incubators, to the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital.

Established by Mr Edward Smith from Australia, the Sympathetic Hearts Foundation has provided free surgery for 225 poor children with congenital heart disease over the past 3 years.

Especially, Mr Smith’s life was saved by a heart donor more than 10 years ago. Since then, he has become actively involved in charitable activities, and cardiovascular surgery and intervention programmes for poor children in Da Nang and Thua Thien Hue Province.

In Da Nang alone, the Australian kind-hearted man has to date donated advanced medical equipment totalling 8 billion VND (equivalent to 343,127 USD) to the Da Nang Maternity and Paediatrics Hospital, and over 1.5 billion VND (equivalent to 64,336 USD) on covering all the surgical costs for poor child patients.