Skip to contents
In This Issue:
Simona Shuster, left, with Moaiad Al-Juboori and Nadia Al-Azzawi.
In Baghdad, Iraq, three children anxiously awaited the arrival of their mother this week, excited that she would return home healthy for the first time in years after a life-saving heart procedure at BWH.
“My heart feels wonderful,” Nadia Al-Azzawi, 50, said through Arabic interpreter Mariam Ibrahim Chahine on the day of her discharge last week. She had been sick as a result of an infection from an implantable defibrillator (ICD) put in her chest in 2005.
“The hospital she went to was Shiite, and she is a Sunni, so they wouldn’t take care of her, and she went months with this infected device implanted in her chest,” explained Laurence Epstein, MD, chief of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service at BWH. “It burst open, and the device was hanging out of her chest.”
She eventually found someone to remove the device, but they left the infected wire (ICD lead) in her body, which migrated into her heart. Al-Azzawi was told to seek care in other countries, but could not afford the cost of surgery.
“No one could help us,” said her husband, Moaiad Al-Juboori. “We saw her in pain, and we didn’t know what to do.”
Through a friend, they connected with Simona Shuster of BWH International, and she took it from there, contacting the Ray Tye Medical Aid Foundation, which immediately agreed to cover the medical costs.
After months of negotiations and visa issues, Al-Azzawi and Al-Juboori arrived at BWH in June, and Epstein and his team removed the infected lead from her heart. “It’s rewarding to know we made a difference in someone’s life,” Epstein said.
“This doctor is very good,” Al-Juboori said—in English. “I tell my family back home that what you see here is what you would see in your dreams. The treatment is beyond our imagination.”
Al-Azzawi could not say enough about the care she received from Epstein for her heart, several other physicians for infections, and many nurses, techs, food service representatives, a social worker and especially Shuster. “Nurses were standing by my side 24/7,” she said. “Doctors followed my case from all aspects. This is something not available in Iraq.”
After her procedure, Al-Azzawi and Al-Juboori had an emotional meeting with Eileen Tye, who, along with her husband, runs the Braintree-based Ray Tye Medical Aid Foundation. “I’ve learned humanity from what you’ve done, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart,” Al-Juboori told Tye, as his eyes filled with tears. “Words can’t express our misery before, and now everything is good. We don’t know how to show you how grateful we are.”
“We’re so happy to be able to help,” said Tye. “We follow these cases along and we’re so close to them that when we finally do meet in person, it’s like they’re family.”
Eileen Tye, Moaiad Al-Juboori and Laurence Epstein, MD, meet after Al-Juboori’s wife, Nadia Al-Azzawi, underwent a life-saving heart procedure at BWH.
Watch a video of Nadia.