Local nurses step forward to play key role in heart ops

Local nurses are beginning to play a leading role in the Operation Open Heart (OOH), a visiting nurse says.
OOH international team leader and intensive care unit specialist nurse Syatka Micik said it now focused on training staff at the Port Moresby General Hospital.
“The (local) nurses here have managed to really step up,” she said. “They are standing at the bed side and we are standing back and they are doing a wonderful job,” Micik said.
“We are going to work on a pathway on how to impart the skills to them to deal with the more complex patients.
“I have identified that PMGH has a ‘learning culture’ — something you cannot find everywhere in the world.”
Micik said the nurses have grown in their understanding of concepts and theories such as that of breathing machines.
Five-year-old Ailieah Damara is one benefactor of OOH after she got her heart fixed this week.
Mother Dorothy said Ailieah was born on Mar 15, 2013, in Usino, Madang.
She was eight months old when she developed a bad cough, fever and shortness of breath.
In 2014, she was admitted to Walium Health Centre and put on medication.
Damara said the medication was not helpful and her condition went worsened and she was referred to Modillion Hospital for further checkup.
Damara took her daughter just in time when the medical team was in Lae screening children for surgery.
She got on the bus with her daughter from Madang to Lae for screening.
It was confirmed that Ailieah had a hole in her heart and she was selected for operation open heart.
Damara said that due to the remoteness of the village and the road condition, including financial constraints, Ailieah could not make it for the operation for five years.
“I told God to spare my daughter’s life and took on her doctor’s advice and controlled her diet within those past five years,” she said.
Ailieah went in for operation on Tuesday and she is recovering well.
“My great thanks to doctors and nurses for giving my daughter a second chance to live, and to my family, especially my big brother, for financial support,” Damara said.
Another patient, Estherlyn Morris, four, of Pangia in Southern Highlands, is happy to start school after undergoing a successful open heart surgery on Sunday.