Bringing Heart Surgery Stories from Australia
Aiden's story of his heart surgery in Australia is the second that Cynthia Hunter brings from our site there. Ali was the first and now she will tell Aiden's and then carry on to tell the story about what heart surgery for children in Sydney, Australia is like.
Our team Drs John Lawrenson and George Comitis in South Africa, Dr Lawrence Tan in Sydney with Cynthia and I, who are anthropologists hope that in telling these stories we will inspire better care for children around the world. This is because each story simply tells us about what was done well, how children and parents felt and how things could be done better.
Each story provides information about how we can bring this delicate and difficult surgery to children in countries that do not have the resources we have in South Africa or Australia. We therefore want to know what a family with very little need to help a child survive heart surgery in a part of the world where the cardiac surgeons fly in and fly out. Best wishes, Lauraine
Operation BraveHeart a Long Walk into 2019
Thank you Phangalele Daniel Colombile for liking our page and a happy new year to you and everyone who watches what is happening with Operation BraveHeart. Very soon we will have another two articles on the way to journals to tell our story. In the New Year Cynthia Hunter will begin posting our Australian children's stories of their journeys into cardiac surgery and so our story continues...stay with us please....Lauraine
We are keeping on looking for children who suffer with heart defects in order to look after them.
The second answer to my question is compassion. Compassion is not just a feeling for those who suffer. Compassion should be the main spring that drives a health care system and the thought processes and decisions of the medical team. In reciprocity it is the compassionate responses of parents in how they too make decisions that affords their participation in giving life to their child.
Mzamo is now 15 years old and Dr Comitis as a cardiologist checked his heart and health and found all to be in good order. In South Africa, the children's hospital treats children below 13 years old and so Mzamo now falls away from the service and into adult cardiology care. The hospital is to appoint a doctor who will now follow-up children after 13 years who have cardiac defects and had surgery to correct them. It is wonderful news when a cardiology and surgical team has evidence that a young man like Mzamo will reach adulthood in good health.
Kayleigh Tells the Story of her Heart Surgery
Kayleigh's Story:
Something very special happens when we go to visit a family and hear as we did with Kayleigh, that a little girl can happily tell her class mates about the life-saving operation she had when she was two and a half years old. Kayleigh evidently told her story to her class quietly and simply. What is equally remarkable is that a year ago or so she chose as an English speaking child to go to an Afrikaans speaking school and here she is telling you in Afrikaans what she told them. I asked Kayleigh if I could record her story on video and Lynn, her mum, has promised that she will send the English translation tomorrow.
I thought you might like to hear what Anganathi remembers about his operation. Lauraine
