The Power of the Patient

My name is John MacEachern and was born in 1941 with Tetralogy of Fallot. At the age of 4, in 1945, Dr. Gordon Murray gave me the famous Blalck Taussig Thomas shunt, thereby making me the first in Canada to undergo such surgery.  I went on to graduate from Cornell University and had a successful career in the Hospitality Industry.  When I turned 50, in 1991, Dr. Bill Williams performed my "Repair" surgery. My shunt had lasted 45 years: amazing. Now retired I am the President of The Canadian Congenital Heart Alliance, www.cchaforlife.org a charitable organization operated totally by CHD patients who are all volunteers. I became founding Chair of the International Congenital Heart Coalition, www.ichconline.com  a group of 21 countries  [so far] which have CHD patient organizations. We need to create awareness throughout Canada and the world so that Governments will wake up and see our problems and the problems of the dedicated specialists who look after us.

It was less than  three weeks ago, January 8, 2010 we received a letter from the lawyers of The Canadian Olympic Committee objecting to the use of our,CCHA, Logo which included a stylized torch which we had been using for the past 6 years. We didn't have the money to fight them in court so I wrote numerous supporters and the Press and posted on our website. The rest is history. within 7 days the matter was settled. We received support from all across Canada, the U.S.A., and as far away as Bulgaria and New Zealand.. I understand that the Olympic Committee was flooded with so many e mails that their system "Crashed". They removed their objection, our Logo remains unchanged and all they asked us to do was to never say that we represented the Olymoic Movement: AS IF! Not a problem, and the matter was resolved and we got more press and support than we ever could have bought.

We as patients MUST ban together to support the amazing prffessionals who specialize in CHD and governments will listen to us because we vote them in to power.

Congratulations to the CHSSDC for this great website!

John MacEachern

President

CCHA