Teams of Australian and Papua New Guinean doctors and nurses have provided life-saving heart surgery to children with heart defects in Port Moresby. The teams worked together from 28 May to 7 June at Port Moresby General Hospital under the Operation Open Heart (OOH) initiative.
AusAID has provided more than $3.2 million to OOH since 1993.
Operation Open Heart brings volunteer Australian doctors and nurses to PNG to provide heart surgery that would not normally be available in the country. Without surgery, most of the children would die as teenagers.
Before OOH, just two selected patients were given access to treatment annually overseas. Since OOH began in 1993, Australian medical teams working with their PNG counterparts have performed life-saving surgery on an average of 50 children a year.
In 17 visits, they have transformed the lives of more than 450 children and 150 adults through surgery. Last week, Australian and PNG surgeons performed 56 heart operations in eight days on children and adults.
Operation Open Heart coordinator Russell Lee said: "The visit was incredibly successful… given a lot of the kids were more sick than what we have experienced in a while."
Australian doctors and nurses mentored and trained their PNG counterparts in surgery and care for patients, and donated medical equipment to the hospital. PNG surgeons performed 15 closed heart and 10 open heart operations during the visit.
Mr Lee said the number of operations completed by PNG surgeons demonstrated how the initiative has helped to build their skills and experience. "And one of the highlights of this visit is to see the local team being passionate about forming their own cardiac team in Port Moresby," Mr Lee said.
Almost 50 Australian doctors, nurses and medical staff from around Australia volunteered for the Operation Open Heart visit. OOH is coordinated by the Sydney Adventist Hospital and backed by support from AusAID and corporate and community sponsorship in Australia and PNG.
AusAID Communications worked with OOH to raise awareness about Australia's development assistance to PNG.
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First published: June 2009