ROMAC helps Vincent return home to Honiara

 

Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) has saved dozens of Pacific Islanders by bringing sick babies and children to Canberra for critical care, which is donated by Canberra Hospital under a memorandum of understanding. They provide surgical treatment for children from developing countries in our Pacific Region, that is not accessible to them in their home country.

 

Their recent efforts were recognised in an article featured on the ABC TV Breakfast Show at 6:45 am on Monday 26^th October, featuring Vincent Toto from Honiara in the Solomon Islands. 

 

Vincent's life was set to end before it really began. His 23-year-old mother, Cosinta Matesonia, endured fear and uncertainty as she fought to keep her malnourished son alive following his birth in May last year.

 

Paediatric surgeon, Dr Celine Hamid, who works at the Canberra Hospital, says Vincent's life came to be in her hands after he was born with a complex anomaly: his oesophagus was not connected to his stomach, leaving him to waste away helplessly. "If he had been left in Honiara, he would have been dead in a few days to maybe a month," she explained. "Because these kids are born without the food pipe, which is the oesophagus, they drown in their own saliva. They aspirate and get lung problems.  There are no paediatric surgeons in Honiara or in most of the Pacific countries. Fiji has two," she says. "So what happens is that when the baby is born, the general surgeon is called to check the child; then they contact us at the Canberra Hospital, pictures are sent, and we contact Rotary."

ROMAC brought Vincent to Australia as a 2-month old for urgent surgery. He stayed with his mother and a Rotary family in Canberra while he had a series of operations.  He underwent three significant surgeries, dozens of gastroscopies and ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit on a few occasions, during his 16 months of treatment in Canberra.

 

Dr Hamid was one of many Canberrans who farewelled Vincent and Ms Matesonia recently, leaving the pediatric surgeon to reflect on her "gratifying" work.  "I've seen him grow and become normal — from a really malnourished, small child with congenital problems to a boy who has a future," she says.  "Because he came here, he turned one in May, he's an active cheeky little child … his milestones are all developing."

 

Well done ROMAC!