Young girl from Togo undergoes vital heart surgery for serious condition in Malaga

A young girl from Togo in West Africa has returned to her home country after undergoing surgery in Malaga for a serious heart condition.

Dina was operated on by a team of cardiovascular surgeons at the Materno Infantil Hospital in Malaga city, enabling her to return home with a healthy heart. Dina's arrival in Spain was possible thanks to the collaboration between the Foundation Tierra de Hombres España and La Chaîne de l'Espoir, an organisation that works in countries with scarce health resources and selects children with serious cardiac issues to be transferred to Spain. Here, they receive treatments that are inaccessible in their native countries due to a lack of infrastructure, funding and qualified medical teams.

The Journey to Life programme is a chain of charities that relies on the valuable support of volunteers and host families who look after the children during their stay in Spain, as well as the support of organisations and sponsoring companies such as Reale Seguros, Delikia and Dental Company. In Malaga, since the Foundation began in 1997, a total of 142 children have been treated and returned to their home country and a total of 856 children in Spain.

In a statement, the foundation thanked all the medical teams involved in this life project: cardiology, paediatrics, intensivists and medical staff at the hospital. They also highlighted the role of the host family, Adrián and Victoria, "who have been fundamental in this process". On Dina's return trip to Togo, she was accompanied by Bruno Pelletier, a volunteer from Aviation Without Borders (ASF), who looked after her during the journey.