A team of 15 surgeons and medical staff from Auckland and Starship Hospitals are currently in Fiji on a two week mission to perform children's heart operations.
The mission is led by Kirsten Finucane, who is the Head of Department of Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Surgery at Auckland's Starship Hospital.
Photo: Supplied
The aim is to perform 15 to 20 operations and almost all the equipment required, including the drugs, had to be taken over with them.
Heart Kids is a New Zealand charity that looks after children and their families and its CEO Rob Lutter said they are one of the charities alongside Heart4Kids who are supporting the island mission.
"There's not that much happening in Fiji and it's about supporting our heart kids over in the Pacific Islands as well as here in New Zealand. So we felt it was of great benefit to help the charitable trust in their role in providing surgery for these kids because if they didn't have this surgery some of these kids would not make it," Rob Lutter said.
