Life Cycle raises $2.5m for Chain of Hope Jamaica

By Howard Walker Observer staff reporter walkerh@jamaicaobserver.com

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A cheque valued at $2.5m was yesterday handed over by Red Stripe's Managing Director Al Barnes, representing Life Cycle, to the charity organisation Chain of Hope Jamaica to assist children desperately in need of heart surgery at the Bustamante Children Hospital in Kingston.

Barnes, a South African, who is in charge of Red Stripe Beer in Northern Latin America and the Caribbean, cycled around Jamaica with his team, without sleeping to raise funds for eight kids in need of surgery.

He had hoped to raise $4m, but to date, they only mustered $2.5m through sponsorships and donations which can only assist five children.

Barnes and his team, along with Miss Jamaica Universe Yendi Phillips, visited the cardiac ward at the Bustamante Hospital in an effort to lift the spirits of the children and their parents.

"We came here to reconnect with what is hopeful. To have 35 hours of tough strenuous exercise without sleep is nothing compared to what the parents do for their children here. It is nothing compared to what the doctors and nurse do here to work with the minimum equipment here," said Barnes, whose tour of duty in Jamaica and the region will be completed in two month's time.

"If we can cycle and get sponsors to help, that's a little bit. If we can get two and half million dollars and make a difference in these children's lives, then we did our part," noted Barnes.

Ten riders attempted the gruelling task of cycling around the island without sleep, but only Barnes, Mavin Anderson and Kirk Finnikin completed the approximately 430-mile course.

Every year 400 children are born with congenital disease, an additional two per cent suffer rheumatic heart disease. Most of these will die before their teens.

Last year, Barnes and his team garnered $3m and saved the lives of seven children by giving them a chance at heart surgery.

The Internationally acclaimed Chain of Hope has been conducting surgical missions to Jamaica since 1997, but in 2007, the Chain of Hope Jamaica was officially launched with an office based at the Bustamante Children Hospital in Kingston.

Since 2007, 80 children have been treated at the Bustamante Hospital as a special effort has been made to train medical personnel in a development cardiac programme.

Chain of Hope has partnered with Gift of Life and two other cardiac organisations in the USA to train surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, technicians and nurses.

Nurse Karen Anderson has been a part of the training programme and she said what they would like to do is raise enough funds to help the parents.

"A lot of our patients are from out of town and the facilities that we have to offer is woefully inadequate. It is improved but still not enough for parents to stay with the children for at least two weeks," Anderson pointed out.

"We have improved dramatically over the last year and every week we do at least one major open heart case and we have two missions per year where we do at least 15 to 18 cases," she added.