Operation Open Heart commended

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By GYNNIE KERO
A MUM has thanked the doctors and nurses who operated on her daughter on Sunday to fix a hole in her heart.
Judith Mackenzie, mother of six-year-old Sheba, thanked the Operation Open Heart team at the Port Moresby General Hospital for giving her a second chance to live.
Sheba, who had congenital heart defects (hole in the heart), was yesterday recovering at the hospital ward after she was transferred from the Intensive Care Unit.
Mum and daughter had travelled all the way from a village in Milne Bay to undergo the special surgery – for free.
She was so grateful because the only the other option was to send her overseas for heart surgery – something she just could not afford.
There are thousands of children like Sheba out there in villages with unidentified heart problems.
Mackenzie urged the Government, business houses and the “good Samaritans” to support the OOH programme which has saved many lives – including Sheba’s.
The OOH programme is made possible by volunteers comprising cardiac specialists, heart surgeons, anesthetists and nurses who travel to Papua New Guinea from Australia and Singapore to perform open heart surgery, mainly on children and young adults.
Since 1993, it has changed the lives of more than 1000 young people. Local doctors and nurses have also benefitted from the training by the volunteer medical teams.