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Shani’s light shines on as footballers raise £20,000 for life-saving medical equipment

Patients at Great Ormond Street Hosital and the Schneider Children's Medical Centre in Israel will benefit

September 12, 2024 13:31
Shani Berman
Shani Berman, whose memory is the inspiration behind raising hundreds and thousands of pounds for paediatric cardiac care
2 min read

A little girl who died at the age of five from a heart defect was the inspiration for a football fundraiser which raised £20,000 for paediatric cardiac care.

Shani Berman was born with a large hole in her heart and no valve linking her heart to her lungs.

Surgeons at Great Ormond Street Hospital implanted a small Gore-Tex tube in her heart where the valve should have been, in what was originally intended to be one of several open-heart surgeries done to normalise her heart and circulation.

At 20 months, Shani suffered from heart failure, and her family, who are members of Elstree and Borehamwood Synagogue, were told she would not make a recovery.