Operation BraveHeart is the culmination of combined efforts of Lauraine Vivian and Claudia Naidu from the University of Cape Town and Andrew Argent, John Lawrenson and George Comitis from Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa to support children who are in need of cardiac surgery in the Western Cape Province and from elsewhere in South Africa. In Sydney, Australia we
are working with Cynthia Hunter, David Winlaw and Stephen Jacobe at the Westmead Children's Hospital and University of Sydney to extend the project into the Pacific Region. Another exciting collaboration is with the photographer and artist Lonnie Graham of Pennsylvania State University, US. Operation BraveHeart has a vision of supporting the pathway to and out of care for children in need of cardiac surgery. It has a strong emphasis on culture and finding out the meaning that families give to the heart, their child's illness, surgery and recovery. In this research Lauraine Vivian and Cynthia Hunter bring their skills as medical anthropologists to better understand the diverse cultural backgrounds that children and families come from and how they cope with cardiac care. We hope through this research to improve the quality of health care, treatment and surgery they receive and to find out how they and their families experience the process. Maintaining care for these children is critical. Operation BraveHeart highlights these issues so that children in South Africa, Australia and other developed and developing nations can all have a chance to lead full lives and grow old.
