HÀ NỘI — LIXIL Vietnam’s INAX sanitary ware brand on Friday donated VNĐ1 billion (US$44,000) to support Việt Nam Television’s Tấm Lòng Việt (Vietnamese Heart) Fund’s heart operation programme.

The programme will provide free surgeries for poor and underprivileged children in Việt Nam with congenital heart diseases. The fund will be used to perform 30 surgeries on under-16 children whose families are too poor to afford the operation.

“We consider the donation to the healthy heart operation programme as our corporate responsibility and a business guideline in joining hands with the society to help needy people, especially children in Việt Nam,” LIXIL Vietnam’s general director Masahiko Hiramoto said at the event.

The donation has brought the company’s total contribution to the fund to VNĐ7.2 billion ($315,000), bringing the total children to have been helped by LIXIL Vietnam in the past seven years to 200.

“Next year, the programme will celebrate its 10th anniversary. To date, the fund has raised around VNĐ91 billion ($4 million) and provided heart surgeries nationwide to more than 3,500 poor children with congenital heart disease. The programme has also supported many hospitals in strengthening their professional capacity and medical facilities,” said Việt Nam Television’s deputy chief office and the Vietnamese Heart Fund deputy director Đỗ Tiến Hùng.

The programme was initiated by the Vietnamese Heart Fund, Việt Nam Television and Viettel Group in 2008.

As per health ministry statistics, 8,000 to 10,000 infants are born with congenital heart defects every year in Việt Nam, and around 20,000 children in the country are still waiting for surgery. — VNS