Heart team to operate in Samoa

A New Zealand medical team is gearing up to perform the first heart operations in Samoa.

The historic surgery is planned for July if a visit next month assures the medical staff they can safely carry out the procedures in the public hospital in Apia, the capital.

The co-ordinator of the New Zealand Medical Treatment Scheme, Dr Chelleraj Benjamin, said he was confident the surgery would proceed.

It would be part-financed by the Samoan Government as well from New Zealand's $1.3 million annual budget to assist small Pacific countries with medical treatment they could not provide their own people.

It cost up to $40,000 to perform major heart surgery on one patient in New Zealand but the same money could allow up to 20 operations in Samoa, he said. "This is very exciting ... It's going to happen."

A fact-finding committee of a cardiologist, cardiac surgeon, anaesthetist and Dr Benjamin would travel to Apia in a few weeks to assess the hospital's facilities and select suitable candidates for the surgery.

A medical team of six would then follow to perform surgery over 10 days in July.

Dr Benjamin said they were all ready to donate their services free of charge and it was hoped up to 15 operations would be performed.

"A lot of goodwill is involved."

Dr Benjamin, clinical director of radiation oncology at Auckland City Hospital, said he became involved with helping Pacific Island countries after visiting Tonga and seeing how much assistance it needed.

He took on the co-ordinating role of the medical treatment scheme 10 years ago and in that time, with the same annual budget, he has doubled to 120 the number of patients who have been assisted.

Dr Benjamin saw the greatest efficiency in taking the specialists to the people in their own countries.

Next month he is sending eye specialists to Samoa to deal with problems from advanced diabetes.

"We will get protocols in place for early detection and prevention."

As well, he has already helped to organise the donation this year of 10 dialysis machines by the Singapore National Kidney Foundation to Samoa with the capacity to treat up to 60 diabetic patients. It means dialysis no longer has to be performed in countries such as New Zealand, Australia and American Samoa.

"The patients had to be hooked up to the machines, so they could not go home. They were stuck here, which made them very depressed."

Treatment scheme

* Available to Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

* $1.3 million budget allocated among countries according to need.

* Treatments include major heart surgery, neurosurgery and complicated orthopaedics.