Eight years ago, an American woman came to Vietnam with her husband, who was busily running a major furniture company in Ho Chi Minh City. A few years later, when he showed his intention of returning to their hometown, she stopped him because she had become dedicated to saving Vietnamese children with cardiac diseases. Her name is Robin King Austin, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of VinaCapital Foundation.

A turning point

One day, a father and his son showed up at her office unexpectedly. The child was gray and could hardly walk to the desk. His lips were purple and his fingers black. He was 10 years old and had suffered every day of his life. The father cried, telling her the story of his son’s difficult case and doctors saying there was nothing could be done in Vietnam.

The boy was among many poor children Robin had met. She said his story broke her heart. “I decided then to create an organization that would focus on cardiac care and find ways to help every child, even the difficult cases,” Robin recalled.

She quit her position as the development director of a NGO and channeled her energies to help more children suffering from heart problems gain access to quality health care. It quickly became her passion, and later a compulsion.

“I wanted to create a team that could and would move very quickly to admit children for urgent care. I wanted to find a way to help the doctors increase the number of cases they did each year so we could save more children,” she said.

“I’m so excited to hear about normal lives after surgeries. I love my job. The thing I don’t like is that I don’t have enough money to save more,” said Robin King Austin.

Hearts save hearts

Afterwards, Robin took a lot of time and effort to develop a project focusing on helping Vietnamese children with free surgeries. Her initial goal was to convince local and international enterprises to fund the project.

She then met Don Lam, VCF’s Board Chairman and CEO of the VinaCapital Group, to discuss the mission. Their two hearts quickly beat as one in the passion of saving thousands of others. The result, the project VinaCapital, Campaign for Children’s Hearts (CCH), was launched in 2005.

“There are a lot of children with heart diseases. That why we wanted to start the foundation. Don Lam let me to do that because we share several goals in life,” Robin told Tuoi Tre.

In October, 2005, Don Lam donated VND500 million (around US$315,000) to the project. The first child patient helped with a free surgery by CCH was 8-year-old Nguyen Thi Cam Dung, hailing from the central province of Quang Nam.

Robin, Don Lam, and other partners were happy to see the good recovery of Dung. According to Robin, VinaCapital Foundation pays all staff and administrative costs to ensure that every dong and every penny will go towards the children.

In 2006 alone, 160 children were saved from their heart problems. Robin realized that the list of child patients would only become longer over time, prompting her to think of a larger-scale project.

“I spend a lot of time on planning for the future. I like to see how can we do better, like training program doctors to improve health care for children,” Robin revealed.

In late 2006, Robin and Don Lam co-founded VinaCapital Foundation aimed at raising funds from partners of VinaCapital as well as other individuals and organizations. The foundation launched various programs including Increasing Capacity for Pediatric and Cardiac Care, The Brighter Path scholarship program, and The International Management Initiative of Vietnam (IMIV), but the key program focused on helping poor children with free surgery on a larger scale is Heartbeat Vietnam.

After five years, Heartbeat Vietnam has saved more than 2,657 children, 736 of them were recorded in 2011, the largest-ever number in a year. Robin and all staff from the VinaCapital Foundation are determined to save 1,000 children suffering from heart diseases in 2012.

Ms. Robin King Austin visits a child patient at Tam Duc heart hospital in Ho Chi Minh City in September , 2010

Never give up

“After working together with her on many projects for 7 years, I have never seen her discouragement or despair. She is a woman of great passion, giving poor children a chance to enjoy life. She is like a bulldozer,” said Nguyen Thi Bich Chau, Heartbeat Vietnam Program Manager.

When I visited Robin close to Tet (Lunar New Year), she told me the touching story of 5 year old Nhan who was born in a poor village in Quang Nam province.

Born with a congenital heart defect, little Nhan had suffered every day of his life. He made the trek with his parents to hospitals across the province, to a cardiac hospital in Hue, and twice to Ho Chi Minh City to be examined at the Heart Institute—a 42-hour roundtrip journey by bus.

But the diagnosis and prognosis were always the same. Nhan needed heart surgery to live but it could not be done in Vietnam. Only a top cardiac pediatric surgeon from an international hospital could undertake the complex operation and give Nhan a chance at survival. From his small house in a rural village, Nhan had little hope.

But a visit to a neighbor changed all that. Nhan’s mother, desperate to save her son’s life, took him to see Suzanna Lubran, an Englishwoman living in their village and a volunteer for Heartbeat Vietnam.

Suzanna immediately informed Heartbeat Vietnam of his conditions.

“After Suzanna told me, we refused to give up hope of saving him and tried to do all we could,” Robin said.

Robin then contacted Dr. James Cox, founder of the World Heart Foundation and one of VCF’s medical training partners, to find the right surgeon to save the little boy.

Nhan’s problem reached the desk of Dr. Erle Austin, Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. A Harvard-trained surgeon with extensive experience with difficult cases, Dr. Austin could offer Nhan unparalleled expertise. He agreed to come to Vietnam and, upon assessing his case, embarked on over ¬five hours of surgery to repair Nhan’s heart.

“Dr. Austin was assisted by a team of the top Vietnamese cardiac surgeons, who used the operation as a training session to advance their surgical skills. This team is now performing this procedure regularly on other children who previously had no hope,” Robin said happily.

“He used to be tired all the time but now is full of energy,” she added.

Besides a being a dedicated co-founder, Robin often does charitable activates silently. She gave money to cover the food and transportation costs for Kieu Thi My Dung in Da Lat central highlands province, and Thach Thi Sa Ly, living in a remote area in Soc Trang Mekong Delta Province, to HCMC-based Cho Ray Hospital for Dr. McKay McKinnon to operate on. When the tumor patients had been discharged from the hospital, she gave them clothes and money for the trip home with the hope of preventing them from feeling bad about their appearance.

When asked about the nice gesture, she refused to speak more about it, saying: “It’s just a small thing, anyone can do it.”

VinaCapital Foundation was given Third-class Labor Medal for their charitable contribution in Vietnam on November, 18, 2011

Robin also came to FV Hosipital hospital in Ho Chi Minh City last month to watch the live broadcast of the operation on Nguyen Duy Hai’s massive tumor. Her VCF team had made arrangements for Cho Ray and FV to broadcast the surgeries so many Vietnamese surgeons could learn from Dr. McKinnon’s techniques.

“It was hard to breathe at the time. I waited for the results at home. I checked my email and messages the whole time. I was so happy when I heard the surgery was a success. Hai is an inspirational character,” Robin recalled.

However, during her time spent doing charitable activities, sometimes she loses. Despite over 2000 precious hearts saved by VinaCapital Foundation so far, Robin never forgets a 14-year-old girl who she failed to save. Her name was Hong Thao and she lived far out in the countryside of Khanh Hoa Province.

“We had an outreach clinic in Nha Trang in 2007, and Dr. Nguyen Van Phan, one of the best heart surgeons in Vietnam, was there. Hong Thao came to the emergency room very close to death. She had never been diagnosed, and had led a solitary life of illness, never able to enjoy childhood like her siblings,” Robin recalled.

Dr. Phan joined efforts to save her. Eventually she was stable enough to be transported to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City where she underwent a surgery. After six hours, she survived. Her heart had been repaired, but since she had lived undiagnosed for many years, she had suffered damage to her kidneys and liver.

After returning home, Thao became sick. Her family went to the only doctor near them, who practiced Chinese medicine. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the extent of her kidney damage and gave her herbs that literally shut down her kidneys. The girl passed away.

“We were all devastated when we heard she died and asked the parents why they didn’t call us - but they said they had already taken so much charity,” Robin remembered.