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By Libya Herald reporter.
![Libya's Health Minister Reida . . .[restrict]El-Oakley after one of the children's heart operation in Tobruk (Photo: Social networks)](https://www.libyaherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/86-US-NGO-carries-out-childrens-heart-ops-in-east-070215.jpg)
A United States NGO, ‘’William Novick Global Cardiac Alliance’’ invited by Libya’s Health Minister Reida El Oakley has been carrying out heart operations on Libyan children for free this week.
Accommodation and flights for the NGO were provided by the Libyan authorities.
The NGO from Memphis Tennessee is led by its founder and leading children’s heart surgeon Bill Novick and is made up of 12 male and female surgeons and medics from the US, UK, Australia and Belorussia, a source in eastern Libya connected to the NGO anonymously informed Libya Herald.
The group has been carrying out back to back heart operations on children at Tobruk Hospital, and plan to visit all heart hospitals all over Libya once the security situation is better.
They have come to do their charitable work in Libya despite their countries’ official security advice, warning them not to travel to Libya, said the source.
The NGO only operate on children because they feel that they are ‘’innocent victims of wars’’, the source added.
Minister of Health Oakley, meanwhile thanked the volunteers on his Facebook page. ‘’We thank the volunteers who came to help in the treatment of cardiac surgery for our children in Tobruk’’.
However, he was less complimentary towards the UN and UNSMIL. ‘’If Mr Ban Ki Moon and Mr Bernardino Leone were aware of the suffering experienced by these volunteers to reach their patients because of the UN resolution that ranks Libya the world’s most dangerous place and the results of this in the lack of flights and high insurance bills on aviation and shipping drugs and equipment’’.
‘’If they knew the size of the suffering that they have caused, they would not look at themselves in the mirror every morning!’’, he concluded. [/restrict]
