The Rotary Club of Hall is currently funding Professor David Croaker and his surgical team to conduct life-changing operations on children in the Solomon Islands.
The club has allocated $50,000 to cover medicines and consumables, airfares and accommodation and insurance for the 10-day visit for the five person medical team.
Pictured top: The team arrived in Honiara at 3 pm on 8 May and by 4 pm had started their clinic to assess each child. They worked solidly and by 10.45 pm, all 45 children had been reviewed.
“Our preordered meals were kept warm for us and they opened the dining room for us at 11 pm so we could discuss our lists for theatres while wolfing down dinner,” Said Liz Hearn.
Above: Prior to departure from Australia for the Solomon Islands are; Dr Sarah Latham (anaesthetist), Professor David Croaker, and theatre nurses Lisa Hazell and Liz heard. (Another member of the team, Rajay, is missing from this photo)
“We feel that operating in Honiara has been a great experience for us, and a useful project to support local health services,” stated Professor Croaker.
“We have delivered both life changing and life-saving surgery to children in the Solomon Islands since 2015 and we want to continue to support Honiara for as long as we’re welcome there. No plan lasts forever, of course, but we hope we can plan for five years with a review after two years. To continue making two visits a year seems to be appropriate and is certainly what they have asked us to provide,” he said.
Professor David Croaker qualified as a specialist paediatric surgeon in 1992, and since then has worked in Australia, Britain, and for short periods in other places, largely as a specialist paediatric surgeon.
