At least 150,000 Tanzanian children have been diagnosed with fatal congenital heart disease.
But, remarkably, in a country of 45 million people, there is not a single paediatric heart surgeon who can help them …. until now.
World News Australia correspondent Brett Mason reports from Israel, where one doctor has spent five years fulfilling his dream of establishing his country's first paediatric heart unit.
It's 8am in theatre seven of Tel Aviv's Wolfson Medical Centre
As surgeon Godwin Sharau scrubs up, his anxious young patient is wheeled into surgery
Six-year-old Salma Issack has travelled from Tanzania
She has a hole in her heart and blockages in her arteries, so no matter how hard her tiny heart beats, it will never pump enough oxygenated blood to her lungs
Without surgery, Salma will die before her twenty-first birthday.
Led by Doctor Godwin, the team of seven Tanzanian medical staff begins the delicate work of repairing and rebuilding her broken heart.
The surgical team operates on young Selma for hours.
It is the hope of these doctors and nurses to one day carry out these types of life-saving operations at home in Tanzania.
But, like each procedure, that will take time and patience.
Doctor Godwin Sharau is asked what difference this operation will make to Salma's life?
"After surgery, most of these patients lead a normal life.
After close to five hours an ultrasound reveals Salma's surgery has been a success.
"She will be healthy. She will be able to live a normal life."
Salma is one of the lucky ones.
Doctor Godwin says many children have died needlessly.
"On average, on a day, you can have like five or six children dying. If 24 hours passes and we've only had one death or two deaths this is actually like a surprise and every doctor feels very good that at least we didn't have as many children as usual dying."
Doctor Godwin moved to Israel five years ago to begin intensive training at the Israel-based charity called "Save a Child's Heart".
The team has been funded entirely by Australian donations, primarily from the Pratt Foundation.
Since 1995, 3,200 children from 46 developing nations have recovered from heart surgery on this busy ward.
The charity's director, Simon Fisher, says Doctor Godwin is just one of 83 international physicians who have trained here.
"Of the 3,000 children we've treated over the years, more than half the children have been palestinian children, children who come to Israel on a weekly, or daily, basis from Gaza and the West Bank. Our children are our common interest. The relationships that are created between the Israelis and Palestinians - whether it's Israeli doctors and Palestinian doctors or Israeli families and Palestinian families hospitalised at Wolfson Medical Centre - gives a message of hope."
But Doctor Godwin concedes the challenge confronting his team when they return home in October is enormous.
"We are just beginning to do open heart surgery for the children and in our list of paediatric cardiology we have already more than 400 patients waiting. So you can realise what a difficult situation this is. It's very depressing how many children already died who are in our waiting list for cardiac surgery. It's very depressing."
Doctor Lior Sasson is the charity's chief of surgery.
"Godwin is an extremely talented surgeon. When he goes back with his team with the expertise they have acquired here, he will be able to save so many children."
When Dr Godwin visits his latest young patient two days after surgery, he says it's these individual stories of survival that warm his heart.
"When you look a child you've operated on and you know that child maybe had a year or two to live and you see that you have given this child another forty or fifty years, this is enough for me. Say well "Should I let 100 die or should I stay and even out of the 100, I can save five or ten", I think the choice becomes clear. It's better to save the ten than to let 100 die. Because every life is important. And it's precious."
World News Australia travelled to Israel as a guest of Save a Child's Heart. You can read more about this story at sbs.com/news
