Mali has one of the highest infant mortality in the World, with 115 deaths for 1 000 children under 5 years old.

The situation is particularly critical when it comes to cardiac diseases. They are responsible for 15 to 20 % of hospital mortality, due to the lack of adapted care. Nearly 6 infants out of a 1 000 are born with a cardiac disease each year in Mali, and half of them present a severe condition, which requires specific care.

Despite the existance of cardiac surgeons, who are trained and able to perform specific procedures, it is clear that the technical devices which woud enable to face the very high demand is almost non existant, and there are no hospital structure capable of treating cardiac diseases in autonomy.

Patients are therefore sent in Maghreb or in Europe, which limits the care to the richest and does not enable to take care of the patients in time, in a numerous cases.

The Mother Child Hospital Le Luxembourg was born with an initiative from the Raoul Follereau Foundation and the Children of Mali Foundation in 1998, which aimed at providing quality to the population of Bamako, in particular to women and children. This non profit private establishment reinvests its benefits into innvation and the development of new services for its patients.

Since 2008, the Mother Child Hospital has been partnering with the Cardio-thoracic center of Monaco, as part of the "Monaco Collectif Humanitaire" program, to take care of patients who are not operable in Mali.

After this fruitfull collaboration, an idea emerged to develop the partnership with the creation of a catheterization service inside the Malian hospital.

This project was held by Share association and received a technical and financial support from the Direction of International Cooperation of Monaco, and of AMADE Monaco.

Following the liquidation of AMADE Monaco, AMADE joined the technical and financial steering committee, in order to provide better quality health care to children with cardiac diseases in Mali.

This service will insure good care for patients (children and adults) with a cardiac disease that requires a specific diagnosis and a surgery. It will also be an answer t o one of the Malian authorities' priorities, which is the improvement of the access to quality healthcare in the country.