Dr. Barry Love, director of the congenital cardiac catheterization program at the Children’s Heart Center at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital in Manhattan, gives a thumbs up after a follow-up appointment over a week after Sofiia Baturina, pictured here, received life-saving surgery. The Ukrainian teen's medical care was arranged by the Staten Island non-profit Global Medical Relief Fund. (Courtesy/Dr. Barry Love)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Sofiia Baturina, 16, had waited months to receive life-saving heart surgery after fleeing from the war in Ukraine. Now, she’s in recovery thanks to the efforts of a Staten Island non-profit that secured medical care for the the teen at Mount Sinai Hospital, Manhattan, for free.
“We’re definitely happy and relieved now knowing that the surgery went well,” said her sister Anna Burstein. “It was a stressful time for us, because Sofiia had the same surgeon all her life, and going to a new doctor was not easy, but we had no choice … The entire staff was wonderful. Only positive memories.”
Sofiia was born with a congenital heart disorder that required her to have surgery earlier this year, according to Burstein, who is a New York City resident. She was scheduled to have the surgery in January, but it was canceled and rescheduled for March when she contracted coronavirus (COVID-19).
But the war started on Feb. 24, and her family was forced to evacuate. The hospitals closed and doctors relocated.
The family found safety in Germany in mid-March and inquired about surgery there. When their requests went unanswered, Burstein began exploring options at Manhattan hospitals near her home in Lincoln Square.
Her boss introduced her to Annadale pediatrician Dr. Arthur Buonaspina, who connected her with the Staten Island-based non-profit Global Medical Relief Fund (GMRF) and its founder and executive director, Elissa Montanti -- who is no stranger to humanitarian relief.
Her Arrochar non-profit has helped more than 500 children in 56 war-torn countries over the last 25 years, providing urgent medical care to those who have been physically damaged by the atrocities of war, natural disaster, or illness.
It’s an organization that has mainly aided children who have lost the use of limbs or eyes, or have been severely burned.
When Montanti heard Sofiia’s story, she said she went outside her comfort zone to offer help.
“I deal mostly with war and natural disasters, but we help children who have lost limbs and been burned and need reconstructive surgery,” she said. “So this was like a hard call, and when I received the email, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, I have to help this family. Like, what am I going to do?’”
Montanti called Daniel Messina, president and CEO of Richmond University Medical Center (RUMC), who has been supportive of the non-profit for years. Messina met with administrators from Mount Sinai, now a RUMC affiliate, to put the wheels in motion for Sofiia’s surgery to be performed free of charge.
Sofiia arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on June 27.
Sofiia is flanked by her parents and workers from customs and border patrol as she arrives at JFK airport on June 27, 2022. Elissa Montanti, who runs the Global Medical Relief Fund, which arranged for Sofia's care, is seen behind the teen's wheelchair. (Photo courtesy of Elissa Montanti)
On Aug. 2, Sofiia underwent surgery with Dr. Barry Love, director of the congenital cardiac catheterization program at the Children’s Heart Center at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital.
The teen was born with type two pulmonary artery atresia with ventricular septal defect and major aortopulmonary collateral arteries, a complex congenital irregularity characterized by frequently severe anomalies of the pulmonary blood supply.
What this means, Love explained, is that the blood wasn’t going out to the lungs, and she needed a connection placed between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery. In Ukraine, surgeons put in a homograph, which is a preserved pulmonary artery of a deceased person, to act as a tube to replace the absent connection.
Sofiia had her first surgery when she was just 10 months old.
But the tube put into the valve became narrowed as Sofiia grew, which made it “very hard for the blood to get from the right side of the pumping chamber out to the lungs,” Love explained. It’s why Sofiia was short of breath.
“Because when she would do activities, her heart couldn’t increase the amount of blood flow that it would pump, because it was limited by the pressure and just couldn’t generate enough pressure to get blood out through that narrowing,” he said.
Before the war broke out, doctors proposed another surgery to replace that tube.
When Sofiia arrived at Mount Sinai, Love ordered his own CT scan and realized she wouldn’t need open heart surgery again. The doctors would be able to operate using tubes through a small incision instead.
“What we were able to do was pull up some balloons to make that area bigger, and then put in some stents, which are metal cages that are mounted on a balloon that when you expand them with the balloon open up and then hold that area open like a scaffold. That relieved the narrowing, so that there was hardly any narrowing now to get out,” said Love.
He then delivered a valve on a stent — a transcatheter valve — which was put inside the scaffold to make sure the blood only moves forward and not backward.
Sofiia stands in front of the Children’s Heart Center at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital a week after she received her life-saving surgery. (Courtesy/Anna Burstein)
The surgery lasted a few hours, and Sofiia was discharged from the hospital a day later. She has been quickly recovering.
“It’s still a significant struggle in terms of recovery when you get home,” Love said. “I mean, just from a pain standpoint and everything else. We considered doing [open heart] surgery for her, but the fact that we were able to do it without surgery I think clearly gave a very advantageous recovery benefit for her.”
Love saw Sofiia on Wednesday for a follow-up exam, and she proudly told him she walked 19,000 steps.
“She didn’t have to stop, and she felt well,” Love said. “Before, after walking up a flight she would have to stop, and she’d be short of breath. Now she can do limitless activities.”
Any valve placed in a patient at Sofiia’s age will typically last 10 to 20 years, and Love said he is optimistic that the surgery will get her through adulthood. With her condition, she will likely need surgery in the future “no matter what,” he said — involving ongoing care and maintenance.
“Sofiia’s feeling better every day, but she still stays home most of the time since she’s a little weak,” said Burstein.
Montanti called the successful surgery a “miracle.”
Montanti said GMRF is currently planning its annual fundraiser in September, and Sofiia is invited along with her family.
“They’re going to be there, which I’m really happy about,” Montanti said. “It’s really nice because we’re honoring, also, Dan Messina from RUMC, so that’ll be a special night, because I had gone to him and asked if he would help [Sofiia], and then he reached out to Mount Sinai.”
Montanti is responsible for commissioning hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sofiia’s free medical care -- changing the trajectory of her life.
Founded in 1997 and run out of Montanti’s closet/office for years, GMRF originally housed children receiving medical care in various locations. When 60 Minutes followed Montanti for four months in 2011, chronicling her work with an Iraqi boy, actor Tyler Perry bought her a home on MacFarland Avenue in Arrochar, where she could better facilitate her work. That Dare to Dream house is now home to a rotating shift of children who are reliant upon GMRF’s generosity.
On Wednesday, with help from Custom and Border Protection at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the non-profit greeted new children with albinism from Zambia. The children will receive surgery prosthetics and rehab by Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia.
Another four children are scheduled to come from Zambia in September. Some have had their arms chopped by a machete because they have albinism, while others have had to recover from severe infections that are the result of an amputated limb.
Montanti escorts Sofiia through JFK airport on June 27, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Elissa Montanti)
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