The heart of a six-year-old Arab-Israeli girl from Kfar Qasim has saved the life of a three-and-a-half-year-old Jewish child from Jerusalem, who had spent nine months waiting for a transplant, in a story linking two families through tragedy, hope and extraordinary medical efforts.
Rafael, who was born with a complex congenital heart defect, had been living at Schneider Children’s Medical Center for nine months while connected to a Berlin Heart ventricular assist device after his own heart failed.
With time running out, his father had already flown to New York, and the family was preparing to leave Israel in search of a donor when doctors received an unexpected call.
At the same time, six-and-a-half-year-old Saba Badir from Kfar Qasim, the youngest of four sisters, was fighting for her life after suffering catastrophic brain bleeding caused by a congenital weakness in a vein.
She was declared dead two days later at Soroka Medical Center. Despite their grief, her parents immediately agreed to donate her organs.
“My daughter is gone. What am I going to do with her heart?” her father, Mahren Badir, said. “The body is buried, but the organs can give life. At least let them save other children.”
During the night, Saba’s heart was transported from Soroka to Schneider, where surgeons successfully transplanted it into Rafael.
“The heart started beating,” said Dr Amichay Rotstein, the senior paediatric cardiologist who has cared for Rafael since he was one. “It was the beginning of a new life. It was everything we had hoped for.”
For Rotstein, the moment carried additional poignancy. Last year his son, Sergeant Tom Rotstein, was killed fighting in Khan Younis, Gaza.
“There are mornings when all you want to do is stay under the blanket,” he said. “Then you receive the news that there is a heart for a child waiting for a transplant, and you throw off the blanket and get up. This work sustains me.”
Weeks after the operation, Rafael’s first wish was fulfilled: a trip to the zoo to feed a giraffe.
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