South-west residents have been asked to open their hearts and wallets before Christmas for a $25,000 fund-raiser to help Warrnambool cardiologist Noel Bayley save lives in Timor Leste.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It will allow Dr Bayley and his team to visit remote areas of the country and help save patients like extremely ill Roberto from having to make the two-day 300km trek by bus and ferry to seek help their help when they visit the capital, Dili.
The Timorese orphan, who became a teacher to help repay the nuns who raised him, had such severe heart disease it often left him too weak, dizzy and breathless to teach his maths and language classes at the orphanage where he was raised.
After seeing doctors from the East Timor Heart Fund, which was founded in Warrnambool, he was recently flown to Australia for life-saving surgery. “He was going to die if he didn’t have the surgery,” Dr Bayley said.
Dr Bayley, who this year received an Order of Australia award for almost 20 years of voluntary work in Timor-Leste, was the first cardiologist to visit Timor-Leste’s isolated western enclave of Oecusse two years ago.
Now, the honorary medical adviser and co-founder of East Timor Hearts Fund is appealing for public assistance to help deliver heart screening in some of the most rugged and inaccessible corners of Timor-Leste.
“In 2016 my volunteer colleagues and I took an exciting light aircraft ride to the mountainous Oecusse district, the first heart specialists ever to do so,” Dr Bayley said.
“We’d love to go back to remote areas like this, as we know that there are many people who need our help.
“But mounting these remote area missions requires aircraft, four-wheel-drive vehicles, logistical specialists, pilots, drivers and specialist portable equipment.
“It’s costly for a small volunteer-based charity like East Timor Hearts Fund, so I’m hoping the public will help.”
Dr Bayley said Roberto was just one example of the need for better heart health services for Timorese living in remote and rural areas.
“Even though he was extremely ill, in September Roberto had to undertake the arduous 300km two-day journey by bus and ferry from his home in remote Oecusse to the capital of Dili, so that my colleagues and I could diagnose his rheumatic heart disease,” he said.
“Roberto is one of the fortunate ones. He’s just had a double heart valve replacement operation in Australia. But one in 28 young people in Timor-Leste has rheumatic heart disease, so there are many more like Roberto.”
East Timor Hearts Fund CEO Stuart Thomson said Timor-Leste had one of the world’s highest rates of preventable, treatable rheumatic heart disease.
With much of Timor-Leste’s population of 1.2 million spread across mountainous and remote districts, getting professional health care to those in need was a big challenge.
Dr Bayley said they needed to raise $25,000 by December 24 to mount their first remote area mission of 2019 in February and reach their goal of providing heart screening for more than 300 people from remote areas next year.
He said most of the support he received for the charity organisation came from the Western District and he was touched by the amount of support.
“It never ceases to amaze me,” he said.
Funds raised by the Every Heart, Everywhere appeal will also support education and preventative health programs in remote areas and help East Timor Hearts Fund provide follow-up care for those who need it.
A kind supporter had offered to match all donations made before midnight on December 24, giving supporters the opportunity to double the value of their donation at no extra cost.
Tax deductible donations can be made at www.easttimorheartsfund.org.au.
