The Heart Institute of the Caribbean Foundation

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Heart Institute of the Caribbean Foundation (HICF), a heartfelt Thank you for your commitment to help reduce the ravages of cardiovascular diseases in Jamaica. I am reminded of Margaret Mead’s often repeated words: “Never underestimate that a small group of committed individuals can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.”

For the past five years, the entire Caribbean has benefited from a state of the art Cardiac Centre (Heart Institute of the Caribbean) that is saving hearts and saving lives. As an accomplished scholar and successful healthcare entrepreneur, Dr. Ernest Madu served on the faculty of Cardiovascular Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School, one of the world’s most prestigious University Hospitals. He experienced first hand the effectiveness of modern treatment options for cardiovascular disease in improving the quality of life and the life expectancy of those who had access to these sophisticated interventions.

Over the years, Dr. Madu has taken time to study the health care system in Jamaica and other developing countries around the world. He concluded that even though much was being done cardiac care was a far cry from what was routinely available to patients in the United States. An environment that encouraged wealthy Jamaicans to seek premium healthcare in the USA and other European destinations is neither acceptable nor sustainable and is detrimental to our national economic and infrastructural development. In addition, this untenable approach denies appropriate care to most Jamaicans who are customarily denied these life saving options because they have no access to overseas institutions.

As the number of citizens needing this high quality cardiac care dramatically increased, the drain on the economy posed a major problem as more and more local dollars were being spent overseas to purchase these services. Interestingly, many of our wealthy citizens that depended on US and other overseas locations for their cardiac care have died suddenly at home from cardiac disease because of the absence of a well equipped local facility to respond to emergency situations. The time lapse to transport patients out of the country have had fatal consequences.

Convinced that Jamaicans and the developing world should have access to optimal levels of cardiovascular care locally, Dr. Madu mobilized private funds, encouraged participation from a small group of local physicians and leveraged relationships and resources to fund a multi-million dollar state of the art cardiovascular centre.
HIC has been active in the recruitment of the best trained and experienced cardiologists and technical staff to provide first rate care to Jamaicans and the wider Caribbean. This dream was realized in April, 2005 with the opening of the Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston.

Because of this vision, Jamaica now has its first state of the art cardiovascular diagnostic, treatment and prevention centre. The centre has become the model for cardiovascular care for low resource countries and is the only such facility in the English speaking Caribbean. This accomplishment has become recognized and applauded worldwide by leading thinkers, institutions and organizations such as TED where Dr. Madu was invited in 2007 as a guest speaker to discuss the HIC model as well as Veer Stichting, in the Netherlands and the USA-Africa Private Investment Forum in Washington DC where Dr. Madu was the keynote speaker in October and November 2008 respectively. Most recently Dr. Madu was a featured lecturer to the top 50 executives at the General Electric Corporation in their Healthymagination Series.
He has recently been invited to share his expertise on the Indian subcontinent as the keynote speaker at the twelfth annual techno - management symposium, TECHNICHE 2010.

I consider it a privilege to work with these esteemed professionals to advance the cause of improving the quality of life for our people. I believe we are doing a tremendous amount of good.

The Foundation is a creation formed from need. We envision a sister organization that would support infrastructural and program development at the Heart Institute of the Caribbean; facilitate open access to cardiovascular care for patients in the Caribbean; subsidize or fund the cost of care for indigent patients who are in need of cardiovascular care; support and finance a wide scale cardiac resuscitation program in the Caribbean, including Open access to Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) in public facilities and training individuals in their use and finally promote cardiovascular health and wellness in the region.

Our dream is that every school teacher, religious leader and every ordinary citizen in Jamaica will be recruited to preach the gospel of preventive health and wellness to combat this scourge on our nations’ health. In addition, we are trying to forge public- private partnerships with the Ministry of Health and other Non Governmental Organizations to provide cardiovascular services to all the public hospitals.

The HICFoundation is registered as a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization in the United States as well as approved by the Registry of Companies in Jamaica as an NGO. I hope you will join us to support the continued work of the HIC Foundation. Please contribute generously so we can continue to do this great work. Your tax deductible donation can save a life. Please help.

Sincerly,

B Waine Kong, Ph.D., JD
President
Heart Institute of the Caribbean Foundation
3151 Rilman Road
Atlanta, GA 30327
678/325-9255

23 Balmoral Avenue
Kingston 10
Jamaica
876/291-1506