Israeli doctors perform life-saving op on Iraqi baby

ISRAELI doctors performed a life-saving operation on an Iraqi baby girl for 10 hours yesterday, trying to correct a potentially fatal heart defect.

Bayan Jassem was born just over a week ago near Kirkuk in northern Iraq with the arteries to her heart reversed. An American military doctor with the occupation forces discovered the infant’s problem and matched her parents up with the Israeli organisation Save a Child’s Heart.

Last Friday, Jassem and her parents began the trek from Baghdad by airplane to Amman and then by car to the border with Israel, which they crossed Tuesday.

Israeli doctors operated on the baby yesterday at the Wolfson Medical Centre in Holon, south of Tel Aviv. One of the foundation officials accompanying the family said the operation took about 10 hours and appeared to be successful, but the baby was experiencing some internal bleeding. Such open heart surgery has never been performed in Iraq, said Jonathan Miles, a doctor who works with Save a Child’s Heart.