The team of surgeons and medical staff from New Zealand that visited Fiji as part of a mission to perform heart operations on children have shared it as a life changing experience.
The team performed 19 surgeries and provided almost all the equipment needed for the operations, including the drugs.
Head of Department of Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Surgery at Auckland's Starship Hospital, Dr Kirsten Finucane says the most difficult part of the mission was selecting the children to be operated on at the Lautoka hospital.
Lautoka Paediatric Registrar Losalini Ravulo Leweniqila says the impact of heart operations on the children and their families is life changing.
She says the New Zealand medical team were extremely generous and hard working, but added that a lot of work went on behind the scenes to organise logistics for their mission.
Leweniqila adds that the child patients will go through post operative care once they are back in their homes and villages.
Source: RadioNZ
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