The “Children’s Care in France” Program: saving, training, supporting

Since 1994, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been working to improve access to care and hospital infrastructure in the world’s most disadvantaged countries.

However, for some sick children, the severity of their conditions requires specialized care that local teams are not yet able to provide. In the most critical cases, the association mobilizes a network of experts to transfer the children to France, where they can be operated on by the best French medical teams committed alongside the organization.

Each year, this “Children’s Care in France” program supports around fifty children, mainly suffering from heart diseases requiring specialized medical treatment, the vast majority of whom come from Africa.

This program includes several steps requiring a strong chain of solidarity:

Diagnosis: performed by medical correspondents in the countries where the association operates, with support from French health professionals
Decision to transfer to France: after multidisciplinary medical review
Transfer by air: escorted by a chaperone, thanks to long-standing partner Aviation Sans Frontières
Welcome at the airport: by a volunteer host family who cares for the child throughout their stay
Hospitalization and surgery: in a partner French university hospital
Recovery: with the host family, who accompanies the child to all follow-up medical appointments
Return home: supported again by Aviation Sans Frontières
Local medical follow-up (if needed): provided by local medical correspondents

Empowering local teams

The “Children’s Care in France” program is a major lever for training and strengthening the skills of local medical teams.

Diagnosis and follow-up phases directly involve local medical correspondents in the child’s healthcare journey. Their exchanges with French teams are based on collaborative consultations and cardiac ultrasound sessions conducted via the echoes® platform.
These interactions help establish diagnoses, guide treatment decisions, and ensure the best possible medical support upon the child’s return.

Thus, the program actively contributes to remote training, skills development, and the expansion of telemedicine tools.

Host families: an essential link

To give these sick children a new start in life, nothing would be possible without the commitment of the 150 host families supporting the association.

They take care of the children throughout their stay: from their arrival in France to hospitalization, recovery, and return home.

Each stay is unique because each child is different. It’s always an experience that affects the entire family, sometimes beyond. Of course, it’s not always easy—you have to be prepared. But it’s mostly a beautiful moment of sharing, learning to live together while respecting customs, cultures, languages…
Claudine Moriclet, volunteer host family since 2008 in Nantes

Testimonies: when solidarity saves lives

Two conjoined sisters saved!

Born in 2018 in a small clinic in Ayos, Cameroon, Bissie and Eyenga entered the world as conjoined twins, joined at the liver and lower chest. They could not survive in these conditions. Thankfully, their condition made separation possible—though impossible to perform safely in Cameroon.

Thanks to an extraordinary mobilization effort, the girls were transferred to France for life-saving surgery. They were successfully separated at the Hospices Civils de Lyon by Professor Pierre-Yves Mure and his team. Bissie later required a second operation for a severe heart condition. A multidisciplinary team—psychologists, psychomotor therapists, physiotherapists—helped the girls adapt to their new independence.

Today, they are in perfect health, living life fully thanks to La Chaîne de l’Espoir.

Before the surgery

After the surgery

A double success for Eya, treated for a heart defect and hernia

When little Eya arrived in Toulouse for treatment, her condition was worrying.

Born with a congenital heart defect—a ventricular septal defect—she was constantly exhausted, and her growth was severely delayed.

“When we welcomed her, we noticed she also had an abdominal malformation. She underwent two surgeries at Toulouse University Hospital: one for her heart and one for the umbilical hernia. She showed remarkable courage!” – Colette Beaucarne, host family

After a few weeks of recovery, Eya was able to return home to Porto Novo, Benin.