News

More Fijians to undergo heart surgery

August 28, 2014 7:03 pm

More Fijians are expected to undergo life saving heart surgery by a specialist team from New Zealand in the next two weeks.

The team of sixty is part of the Friends of Fiji Heart Foundation that have been saving Fijian lives for the last eight years.

However this year Foundation Chair Craig Strong says the team – consisting of surgeons, cardiologists, technicians, specialist theatre nurses and physiotherapists will attempt to save lives of more children than ever before.

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“The pediatric team who has come from Starship in Auckland will be able to perform one week solid work on children. And that’s one of the major significant points in this mission that we don’t have to turn children away and for us being in the hallway in the operating theatres last year watching the news being broken to family members that we can’t perform on them. You know there’s differences between performing an operation on an adult versus the child so having a pediatric team here, it’s something really special.”

Although the Lautoka Hospital is currently undergoing refurbishment and renovations to its facilities, the team of good Samaritans remain focused on the life saving work ahead.

The team is led by Fiji’s own Dr Parma Nand-the only open heart surgeon Fiji has produced so far.