"Thank God! I am so lucky," said To'imoana Taufateau (50), recovering this week from open-heart surgery performed at Tonga's Vaiola Hospital.

His was one of the emotionally-charged comments made by some of the 14 Tongan heart patients who are recovering from their heart operations performed by a team of specialist surgeons and support staff from Australia, who worked day and night - and even through Sunday's 7.1 earthquake - to treat as many patients as possible during their visit.

Thirty volunteer cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, anesthetists and specialists nurses were visiting Tonga from October 6-24, 2008 under an 'Operation Open Heart' surgical assistance mission.

Seini Matafahi who received a new heart valve was near to tears as she expressed how much better she felt after her life-restoring operation, "Good, really good!" she said.

By October 22 six of the 14 patients had been discharged and only eight were still in the Surgical Ward, where Nurse Fakaloloma Vehikite said that there had been no major complications and all the heart patients were doing fine.

Nurse Karen Moran one of the Australian nurses with the team said that two of the 14 patients did not have to undergo a by-pass operation so only 12 went through with open heart operations. Karen said that the three surgeons did a marvellous job, "they started at 7am and worked until 11pm, every day." The patients ranged in age from a three-year-old baby to a 50 year old man, and most of them needed the valves of their hearts repaired while others had holes in their hearts.

Rheumatic Fever

She said that those with holes in the hearts had them from birth, but those with damaged values were usually caused by Rheumatic Fever.

"The operation was to repair the values and to fix the holes by implanting heart tissues in the heart," explained Karen.

Rheumatic fever is a complicated, involved disease that affects the joints, skin, heart, blood vessels, and brain. It is a systemic immune disease that may develop after an infection with streptococcus bacteria, such as strep throat and scarlet fever.

Gave up holidays

The Open Heart Operation team came from the Sydney Adventist Hospital "the San" and other hospitals in Australia, and was co-ordinated by Annette Baldwin, nurse executive officer. The members gave up their holidays to travel to Tonga and covered many of their own expenses, there was also assistance from the Australian government and local business people.

Annette said the team arrived on Saturday October 4, set up their equipment on Sunday October 5 and began operations on October 6 and worked everyday well into the night.

Earthquake

On Sunday October 19 the team was in the middle of a delicate open-heart surgery when Tongatapu was shaken by a 7.1 earthquake.

"The building shook and the operation stopped for a few minutes," said Annette, who explained that the core team of nine surgeons and specialists could not leave the sterile area in the centre of the operating theatre. "There were a lot of observers in there and they all went to the sides of the room but the operation continued as soon as the shaking stopped," she said.

In Tonga the co-ordinator was Dr Toakase Fakakovi.

Operation Open Heart, one of Australia's most highly-regarded international surgical aid programmes, is coordinated by the Sydney Adventist Hospital and sources volunteer medical, nursing and allied health professionals from all over Australia and New Zealand:

The team for Tonga also included Mr Noel Bayley, Adult Cardiologist; Mr Malcolm Richardson, Paediatric Cardiologist and his wife Kerrie, a sonographer who did the echos; Mr Ian Smith, Anaesthetist; Mr Bruce Prager, Intensivist; as well as Theatre Nurses, Anaesthetics Nurses, ICU Nurses, Ward Nurses, Physiotherapist, Pathology and Communication PR.