Brigette Flores, a 2-year-old Panamanian girl, will be leaving Boston next week with more than souvenirs and photographs – she will be leaving with a working heart.
Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Rotaract Club made it possible for Brigette, who suffered from a congenital heart defect, to receive open-heart surgery. She will return home on March 9 in good health, members said.
The Rotaract Club’s partnership with the Gift of Life International program, which saved its 10,000th child in October, allowed the Club to host Brigette and her mother, Yisel, on campus for more than a month while Massachusetts General Hospital conducted medical preparations and pre-operation examinations.
‘It’s a great thing, because she’s obviously going to leave in a much greater quality of life than she came,’ Rotaract Club Vice President Ketti Chauhan, a School of Management Senior, said.
‘ Brigette’s four-hour open-heart surgery took place on Feb. 9. She is the second child BU Sargent’s Rotaract Club has saved. The club saved its first child in Spring 2007.
‘ ‘[She is] recovering incredibly well,’ Rotaract Club member Hector Mendez said. ‘It doesn’t even seem like she’s had a surgery.’
GOLI, a non-profit organization, was founded in 2005 in collusion with the GOL program, which addresses the medical needs of children across the globe who suffer from congenital heart defects and other similar conditions.
When Brigette and her twin Millie were born, the family found out the twins had heart defects. Millie suffers from the same condition as Bridgette and will likely be traveling to the U.S. this summer to receive surgery.
She was rescheduled for her recent surgery in Boston three times before Brigette’s doctor contacted Yisel and advised her to contact GOL because the surgery Brigette required is not generally performed well in Panama, she said.
Yisel said although she was happy to hear that Brigette would be able to come to Boston to receive surgery, she was also frightened of being in a place where she knew no one.’
BU allowed Yisel and Brigette to use the University President’s guest suite on Bay State Road for the duration of their stay, and Sargent Rotaract has made sure the pair is never alone, Chauhan said.
‘ ‘One of the [Rotaract e-board members] stays with the family every night, and we try to visit every day,’ Chauhan said. ‘Obviously, the more support she [Brigette] gets, the better.’
Rotaract Club President Caitlin Synovec said Brigette is ‘a bubble of energy.’
‘She’s always really active and really happy,’ Synovec, a School of Management senior, said.
Chauhan said the club must raise at least $5,000 to be able to sponsor a GOL child. This money, raised primarily through fundraisers, is used to pay for the family’s travel, groceries and other expenses during their stay in Boston.
Mendez, an SAR senior, who frequently took on the role of translator for Yisel and Brigette, said it helped him put things in his life into perspective.
‘With the little bit that they do have, they’re very happy,’ he said. ‘For the surgery and everything that we’ve given them, they’re very grateful.’
