Caption: Operation Open Heart PNG patron
Justin Tkatchenko
By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, February 14, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
OPERATION Open Heart PNG patron and Minister for Sports and Tourism, Justin Tkatchenko, has hailed the achievements of the lifesaving program in saving many lives and its achievements in setting in place local heart surgeon taking over the yearly program.
Minister Tkatchenko personally thanked the efforts of Chief Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Dr Noah Tapaua, and his team and the support from Open Heart International Australia under its team Coordinator Dr Russel Lee.
“Dr Noah has been with Operation Open heart for a very long time and was part of our funding as well for operation open heart in Singapore to enhance his studies to be someone today to help Papua New Guineans in our country and not outside,” Tkatchenko said.
“And with our first female doctor as well who is doing heart operations now, just shows you where we are going at our level at the government level as well.”
“We just have to keep on supporting and totally embrace these young Papua New Guineans that want to do something for our fellow Papua New Guineans.”
Tkatchenko pointed out that with not many in the elite categories of heart and brain surgeon the effort of local doctors to take up the specialties were to be commended.
“For me as patron witnessing the smiles on beautiful Papua New Guineans only days, or sometimes hours after they’ve had their operation just shows me we can do it ourselves and Papua New Guineans can do it.”
“Yes we need the expertise, the training and the teaching to enhance ourselves forward, and after that now we have a Papua New Guinean doctor teaching our own Papua New Guinean doctor to be a heart surgeon and as Papua New Guineans we must be very proud that we have our own doctor training our own in heart surgery.”
“Hopefully in the future we’ll have many more doctors like Dr Noah (Tapaua) training our own and operating our own so the expensive cost of going overseas will diminish and we can do it here on our own backyard.”
He said despite the access to private hospitals in the country with private doctors from overseas- the country’s premier hospital Port Moresby General Hospital (Pom Gen) has the best trained by Papua New Guineans with the help of overseas teams.
“We have Papua new Guineans trained by Papua New Guineans, supported by Operation Open Heart PNG, Open Heart International, and others.”
“So just because its government and just because it’s us we are second rate. That is rubbish- we are not second rate at all- we are as good as anybody in the world or our doctors would not be operating on these children. It is as simple as that.”
The minister also indicated that he would hand in a proposal from Operation Open Heart PNG to further enhance the capability of local doctors in the field.
“We just have to continue that momentum and keep on supporting them and I’ll be speaking to our Prime Minister. We have a very nice proposal being put forward to continue the work of our doctors here and to continue moving it forward.”
“I appeal as well to the business houses out there to corporate clients who want to get behind operation Open heart and our doctors.”
“The reward is truly worth more than the money you give, so give as much as you like because the satisfaction of these young Papua New Guineans that have got no hope to finally get a bit of hope through operation open heart through a life changing heart operation is just remarkable.”
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