By William M Novick, M.D.
Tripoli, 10 March 2020:
As those who have been following our charity, Novick Cardiac Alliance, activity in Libya know, we started our programme in Benghazi at the Benghazi Medical Centre (BMC) in 2012 and it was interrupted in May 2014. We returned to Libya to Tobruk in February 2015 and operated there only until Benghazi settled down in 2016.
Between 2016 -2019 we made trips to both Tobruk and Benghazi. We added Tripoli in June 2018 and made 5 trips there completing the last trip in December. Our programme in Tripoli was supposed to continue in 2019, but between January and March we waited for the budget to be approved and once it was in late March we scheduled to return to Tripoli in late April/early March. Little did we expect that Tripoli would come under siege from the Libyan National Army (LNA) in early April. As such the program was postponed and we did not return until November 2019.
Novick Cardiac Alliance is training doctors, nurses and technicians on both sides of the country in Benghazi and Tripoli in order to develop paediatric cardiac care (children’s heart) teams to cover the need for children with heart disease in Libya. Our team is currently at Tajoura National Cardiac Center and will be there another two weeks. Yes, we are aware of the constant bombing of the Tripoli area, but without our help, Libyan children would be dying of heart disease as well as bombs.
Last week one of the doctors we are working with at Tajoura brought in the remnants of a bomb that exploded near their home near Mitiga Airport. In April of last year, one of the paediatricians we were training at Tajoura in paediatric cardiac intensive care was killed as he was loading wounded into an ambulance near the front lines. In October last year the uncle of one of our Libyan organizers was killed when a couple of bombs hit his house as he was returning to get some clothes for his family. They had evacuated and moved the week before.
We are on both sides of the country during this war, we have not aligned ourselves with either political side. We are on the side of the children with heart disease, their parents and the healthcare professionals that struggle daily to try and save these children and give them a future. Civilian deaths and children’s deaths are driving the population of Tripoli away from the diplomatic solution and negotiations.
As a doctor, humanitarian, father, and individual who sees the vast potential for Libya, I beseech you General Hafter and President Serraj to find a solution so that the children of Libya have a future.
Our team has another 2 weeks in Tajoura and then in April we will return to Benghazi and after Ramadan, we will return to Tripoli to save more children and educate more Libyan healthcare professionals.
As of Saturday evening 7 March 2020, we have operated on 370 children in Tobruk, 399 in Benghazi and 212 in Tripoli for a total of 981 children since 2012 and by the end of the current Tripoli workshop it will exceed 1,000 patients!
I ask in the names of the children of Libya, stop this war and resolve your differences so that Libya can become the wonderful country that we see in the hearts of all Libyans, east, west and south.
William M Novick, M.D.
Medical Director, CEO and Founder
William Novick Global Cardiac Alliance
Professor of Surgery and International Child Health
University of Tennessee Health Science Center-Global Surgery Institute
