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Reynaldo Nilo, a rheumatic heart disease sufferer and son of impoverished farmers boarded a flight on Monday for Khartoum, the capital of the east African country.
The city hosts a hospital run by Emergency, an Italian charity that is renowned for its state-of-the art cardiac surgery provided for free, usually to people from Africa.
“I am extremely grateful to them for giving me the chance to have a longer life,” the 17-year-old said before he and his elder sister, Sarah Joy, boarded the plane to Khartoum.
Sarah Joy only found out about the Italian charity after chancing upon an Oscar-nominated documentary.
Nilo, who had to drop out of school because of his condition, said he knew little about Africa. “I’m scared because I heard they have Ebola there. I’m also concerned about the wars there,” he said as he sat beside his elder sister at a relative’s home in Manila.
Nilo suffered from strep throat as a child and, because he did not take antibiotics at the time, it led to rheumatic heart disease.
Without open heart surgery, most sufferers of the disease die by the time they are 20, according to Emergency.
The family was growing increasingly desperate until Sarah Joy watched a documentary released in 2013 called Open Heart, about Emergency’s hospital.
The film tells the story of eight Rwandan children with rheumatic heart disease who undergo the high-risk surgery at the hospital, the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery.
Opened in 2007, it is described by Emergency as the only free hospital specialising in complex heart operations in Africa.
Unable to afford medical treatment, his sister scoured the internet for ways to relieve his discomfort.
“We were always worried for him. I was scared he would succumb [to the disease], but I steeled myself, determined to show him that we were not giving up,” Sarah Joy said.
From the film credits, Nilo’s sister tracked down the US producer, who eventually put her in touch with the Italian organisation.
The charity, which was set up by volunteer doctors in 1994 and provides free medical care to victims of war, landmines and poverty, agreed to help Nilo.
After the surgery to replace or repair heart valves, Nilo will require medication for the rest of his life, which Emergency has also agreed to pay for.
Turkish Airlines have agreed to cover the cost of the Nilo’s flights, which alone would have cost years of income for their parents.
“We are just so happy that this foundation agreed to help us,” Nilo’s sister said. “We were afraid we would lose him.”
