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| 3-year-old Bunlak Song is comforted by his sister, Bunlak Song, after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport from Cambodia on March 6. Bunlak Song was brought to the United States by Hearts Without Boundaries, a Long Beach, Calif.-based non-profit group, to help repair his heart. (Jeff Gritchen / Staff Photographer) |
07/29/2011
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)
LONG BEACH — The trip of an impoverished Cambodian boy halfway around the world for life-saving surgery was only a part of the journey.
Now it looks as if Bunlak Song, a 3-year-old suffering from several heart defects, won't have to travel much farther from the Long Beach home where he is staying to receive the open-heart surgery he desperately needs.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles agreed to admit the boy, and renowned surgeon Vaughn Starnes has said he will perform the operation and waive his fee.
Starnes is the same surgeon who operated on Davik Teng, another impoverished Cambodian child, in 2008.
Although a date has yet to be set, it could happen as early as the coming week.
"We've been waiting for today to come for many weeks," Peter Chhun, founder of the nonprofit sponsoring Bunlak, said shortly after he sent a payment to the hospital. "It is beyond my belief."
The Los Angeles hospital has also agreed to provide what could be extended postoperative care after Pasadena obstetrician Shaun Grady, with the help of a fundraiser, offered to pay a hefty portion of the hospital bill, which could be about $60,000.
To get to this point, however, has been a long and at times frustrating journey.
When Bunlak was brought to the U.S. by nonprofit Hearts Without Boundaries, Chhun didn't know exactly how he would find someone to give the boy the surgery needed to fix the hole in his heart and save his life.
"I brought him without a concrete plan," Chhun admits. "But once you make a commitment, you have to believe you'll have help along the way."
That help came from Grady, who chanced by a fundraiser that Hearts Without Boundaries was holding in Long Beach.
Grady was smitten by Bunlak and agreed to stage a fundraiser at his home, which raised about $40,000. Then, after negotiating with Children's Hospital Los Angeles, he was able to agree on a price and to cover the shortfall from the fundraiser.
Although Children's Hospital does not release financial information about patients, Chief Operating Officer Rod Hanners did say in a statement that the hospital made services available to those unable to pay to the extent it was able.
"As a nonprofit medical center with limited charity care funds available, however, we are also committed to managing those resources responsibly," the statement says. "We are grateful to Hearts Without (Boundaries) and our cardiothoracic surgeons for helping to offset some of the costs associated with this case."
Although there was an option to have Bunlak travel to Honduras or the Dominican Republic for treatment from a mission of traveling surgeons, at a lower cost, Grady believed it was important to keep Bunlak close in case of complications or an extended hospital stay.
"I think that we went with the best doctor and the best hospital," Grady said.
For Bunlak, who already had missed two of the international missions and had been turned away by Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach because of complicating factors, it seems his fate changed as time was running out.
Still, his case is not easy. It was already known that Bunlak had a hole in his heart, or a ventricular septal defect, plus a less severe defect called a patent ductus arteriosis.
However, Miller Children's Hospital also found his lungs were suffering from hypertension that was barely relieved by drugs and almost beyond fixing. He also had a problem with his aorta that had previously gone undiagnosed.
"We are not quite prepared for this type of a challenge," cardiologist Dominic Blurton said at the time.
"I would like to believe someone can help him, but it is going to be a rough ride," Blurton said.
Without surgery, Blurton predicted, the boy likely would survive five to 10 years through declining health and "never getting better."
With Starnes and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Bunlak may yet have his best shot at a full and healthy life.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
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