Boy gets life-saving surgery funded by Polish athlete’s Olympic medal auction
Barcelona, Spain, Oct 26 (EFE).- Polish athlete Maria Andrejczyk auctioned her Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medal to fund a life-saving operation for an infant who was suffering from a serious heart condition.
The eight-month-old boy called Milosz was successfully operated on at the Hospital Dexeus in Barcelona on October 4. The infant has since returned to his home in Poland, hospital officials reported on Tuesday.
The child’s mother said the infant was diagnosed with congenital heart disease when he was four weeks old and said the family was very grateful to the athlete for raising the necessary funds to travel to Spain to get treatment.
Dr. Raúl Abella, head of the Congenital Heart Disease Unit at Hospital Dexeus, said Milosz was suffering from both heart and pulmonary complications and that ‘sutureless’ surgery had been used successfully to increase the draining of arteries on the infant’s left lung.
The doctor added that in this way “subsequent narrowing is prevented, definitively correcting the drainage.”
Milosz will have to return to Barcelona for a six-monthly and yearly check-up but will lead a normal life thanks to Andrejczyk and other donors’ efforts.
Track and field athlete Andrejczyk is the 2020 Summer Olympics silver medalist and 2015 European Junior Champion in the javelin throw.EFE
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