VIDEO – Ahmed, Malian child suffering from a rare heart disease, operated in France thanks to La Chaîne de l’Espoir

Asleep in the arms of his companion, Ahmed has arrived from Mali and has no idea of ​​the welcome awaiting him at Nantes airport: the Hibert family has come in full force. It is with them that the little boy will live for a few weeks.

“It’s moving to see him, so small. You can see that he is crumbling with fatigue. But that’s it, our role begins. It’s up to us to play”, explains, in front of the camera of 13H of TF1, in the report at the head of this article, Isabelle Hibert, whose family is a volunteer and forms one of the links of La Chaîne de l’Espoir.

This NGO has created a heart surgery center in Bamako, but Ahmed suffers from a rare disease that cannot be operated there. So, in this kind of difficult case, the association organizes a transfer to France. “His intervention is really urgent. He cannot wait more than six months. That’s why we asked for a transfer.”, explains Doctor Sanoussi Daffé, cardiologist at the André-Festoc cardiopediatric center, in Bamako.

Ahmed is only one and a half years old, but his family decided to let him go so he could heal. “We are happy, but we are also melancholy because it feels [de la peine] to see such a small child leaving far from his parents “, confides the boy’s father, Abdoulay B.

In France, the Hibert family is present to take over and support the little boy in this adventure far from home. To do this, they welcome him to their home, in Pornic (Loire-Atlantique), and will meet all his needs, providing him with “everything he could have at home. We try to give him as much during his stay in France and the time that the hospitalization will last. We think about our family too, we put ourselves in their shoes. We are fine. to take care of him”, continues Isabelle Hibert.

The family’s mission is also to accompany the child to his medical appointments. That day, under the lens of our camera, he met his cardiologist, as well as Professor Olivier Baron, his surgeon.

It is the latter doctor and his team who will work in the OR – successfully – for nearly five hours to repair Ahmed’s heart. The little boy will have to be watched, but his life is reaching out to him now. “We wish him the best of life, now that he has a brand new little heart”, says Eric Hibert.

His convalescence should last another month. Time for him to blow out his two candles in France. Each year, The Chain of Hope allows around 100 children to operate in France.