Up and Away!

This post is by Michael Were, Manager of OHI.

The next exciting installment of Open Heart International is about to begin.

On Friday night the majority of our 39 strong team will be flying to Nuku’alofa which is the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga. We’ll be there for two weeks and are aiming to provide surgery for about 25 people during this time.

Our team cardiologists and sonographer touch down today and will begin the reviewing approximately 45 patients from all over Tonga suffering from congenital or rheumatic heart disease.

From these reviews, we’ll have to choose the 25 with the best possible chance for good recovery. Its one of the toughest jobs, but with only limited time and resource, sadly some people will miss out.

We’ll be keeping you up to date via this blog with all the important news from Tonga, so keep coming back and checking out what we are up to.

The photo below is from last week when our two and half tonnes of freight started its journey. The big green box is making its Open Heart International debut on this trip. Inside is our new heart-lung machine. This machine and the talented perfusion staff keep the patient alive while the surgeon is repairing the heart. A big thank you to our good friends at Terumo for helping us out with this purchase!