Call for help

December 19, 2012-12-19

Group seeks donations for Fukushima girl needing heart transplant

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121219p2a00m0na010000c.html

FUKUSHIMA -- A group in a village of Fukushima Prefecture is seeking donations for a baby girl to undergo a heart transplant in the United States.

The Yoshida Aoi-chan o Suku Kai (Committee to Save Aoi Yoshida), is collecting money for Aoi Yoshida, a 20-month-old girl in the Fukushima Prefecture village of Hirata who has a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy, which causes the heart to become weakened and enlarged.

"We just want to enable our daughter, who has made it through many dangerous moments, to play outside," Aoi's 38-year-old mother Akiko, said.

Associate professor Arata Murakami of the University of Tokyo Hospital, where Aoi is being cared for, said that dilated cardiomyopathy causes the heart muscles to gradually grow thinner. Aoi was diagnosed with the ailment in February this year, and her condition began to worsen in July. As part of a clinical trial in August, she was fitted with a ventricular assist device to improve her blood circulation. Her condition improved but there is a high chance that long-term use of an artificial heart will result in blood clots or infections, and a heart transplant is said to be the only way to save her life.

In 2010 a revision to the Organ Transplant Law in Japan made it possible for people to donate the organs of brain-dead children under the age of 15, but there have so far only been two such donations in the country, so Aoi's parents decided to go ahead with a transplant in the U.S.

The parents received informal consent from Columbia University hospital officials to have Aoi undergo an operation, and they plan to travel to the U.S. for the operation as early as January next year. However, the total cost of their trip and the surgery is expected to reach 165 million yen, so the family's neighbors formed the committee.

"We want to help this small life," committee head Norio Kuboki said.

Aoi's 40-year-old father, Masahiro, commented, "We wondered whether we should trouble people in these difficult times after the (Great East Japan) earthquake, but seeing my daughter's face, I couldn't give up. We would be happy for any help we can get."

Telephone inquiries (in Japanese) can be made at the Yoshida Aoi-chan o Suku Kai office at 0247-57-5562. Donations can be made by transfer to an account at the Japan Post Bank, account No. 02250-1-112497.