The lifesaving Operation Open Heart (OOP) has received a sponsorship boost of K30,000 from the Malaysian Business Association (MBA).
The funding will go towards training for PNG doctors and nurses in Singapore so that they’ll be able to perform surgery work for the OOP.
The overseas doctors that come for the OOP do not perform most of the operations but oversee the training of PNG doctors and nurses.
OOH in the past 18 months has seen a doctor return from Singapore as a fully trained cardiothoracic surgeon, two prefusionist nurses and six ICU nurses who go for regular training
OOH plans to send two more PNG doctors overseas to train next year.
OOP committee member Jacque Ware said they really need to raise quite a lot of money and it’s going to get more expensive because we need to train more personnel in the cardiac unit.
Ware said that the money is used to partially fund the Singapore team that comes annually to carry out the OOP surgery for adults because it’s part of the training for the PNG medical team.
“We are very appreciative of organisations that come on board to assist such as MBA who give us an annual commitment which we rely on as part of our expenditure budget,” she said.
MBA committee member Ivan Lu said they are pleased to give back to the communities in PNG where they do business.
MBA has been assisting OOH and the Sir Buri Kidu Foundation for 16 years now with K367,000 donated so far.
The MBA last year raised more than K1 million and over K6.5 million in the last 16 years to contribute to this worthy course.
“We can see that there are a lot of improvements in the organisations we assist and I urge Malaysian business houses and Malaysians in PNG to continue to assist,” Lu said.