Lovelette Brooks, Special Projects Editor
Dr. William Foster, after receiving his Order of Distinction (CD) at King's House, last year.
Consultant Cardiologist, Dr. William Foster has been mending hearts - not broken but diseased - for well over 27 years. To date he has facilitated over 430 adults and children to have life-saving surgeries done overseas, free of cost.
"At least half are children who would otherwise have died without getting surgery," Dr. Foster discloses.
At present, he has 48 patients with varying heart diseases ranging from congenital e.g., 'hole in the heart' to vessels attached to the wrong chamber, to narrow or missing valves, on his waiting list for surgery in the United States. All are critically ill, and some could die if they don't get surgery done within a specified window of time.
Hard not to do anything
"If you have children coming to you who are blue, it is hard not to do anything about it," Dr. Foster says of his humanitarian efforts, explaining that inadequate resourcesand increasing demand for life-saving heart surgery in Jamaica result in some patients not getting the treatment necessary to make them well.
Dr. Foster - who worked out of his father's practice on Orange Street, downtown Kingston, and who observed his father giving free medical service to the poor over many decades - feels personally responsible for these patients - to the extent that he has devoted a great deal of time and energy helping his patients have their surgeries done in the United States.
"It's hard work," he admits, "and requires immense negotiating skills as it is not easy to get a strange person to do something like this. In 99 per cent of the cases, the arrangements are made on a doctor-to-doctor basis. When I decided to take on this challenge in 1986, I approached my alma mater, Howard University, Washington, D.C., first. They took two patients. I then approached the National Institute of Health in Maryland, and they too did two surgeries free of cost."
Since then, Dr. Foster has not missed a beat. "I call on behalf of my patients and beg strangers to accommodate them. Convincing doctors that this critically-ill patient needs your help is the hardest part, but I do it with a combination of wit, inventiveness and humour," Dr. Foster shares.
To date, over 50 hospitals and medical centres spanning 25 states in the United States have done free heart surgeries for Jamaican patients, through the instrumentality of one doctor.
"It is amazing how these doctors will readily discount their fees totally once they know that they are helping to save lives. It costs between US$120,000 (J$8,400,000 approximately) to US$130,000 (J$9,100, 000) to do one surgery, so the write-off is not small," Dr. Foster explains.
The negotiations are not always smooth and planning can take a few weeks or a few months to complete, especially in the case of young children. Some hospitals have their own accommodation, but require even a minimum fee from the patients; others stay with relatives or sponsor familieswho will keep and care for them for the duration of their stay.
Support from charities
Apart from individual caregivers and sponsoring families in the U.S., Dr. Foster has received support from group charities such as Healing The Children and Gift For Life Foundation. Within these programme, families will send for a patient due for surgery, and will do everything that the biological parents would do to make sure the patient is well cared for.
"Before I send my patients off to these sponsor families, I do my research and ensure I can personally vouch for their credibility. This is very important to the success of the programme, says Dr. Foster who facilitated 47 patients last year. Many hospitals, he said, will take three or four patients per year.
He acknowledges that his efforts to get patients abroad have been made easier by help from Air Jamaica, American Airlines, and Continental Airlines, to a lesser extent.
All the surgeries that have been done abroad have been successful, according to Dr. Foster who last year received the Order of Distinction (CD) for outstanding voluntary service to Jamaican children in the field of open-heart surgery.
Inspired by a statement made by former president of the United States John F. Kennedy, who he met when he was 20 years old as a student doctor in Washington, Dr. Foster's devotion is purely on humanitarian grounds.
"I will never forget that statement made by President Kennedy. He said: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. That has stuck with me."'
Also etched deeply in his psyche is a profound statement made in 1960 by Ebony. Throughout my professional career, I was always mindful of Ebony's declaration: "As a people, we will never improve unless we give our children a chance to live a better life than ourselves," says the Boston Fellow in Cardiology who has worked as a consultant at the University Hospital of the West Indies for 25 years.
During his time there, he says, it became clear that the hospital could not operate on all the children who needed help. A situation, he shares, that still exists today.
