Your People’s Coalition Government commends the huge self-sacrificing work that you are all doing, and we stand ready to help in any way we can.
An emotional Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka highlighted this at the Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Heart Hospital which was celebrating the milestone of 100 free heart surgeries.
Rabuka says congenital heart issues are not new to his family.
He also says in fact they can relate to many families, and many have been at the receiving end of concerning news about the health of our very young.
Rabuka shared that one of his two great-grandsons, Dallas was diagnosed with rheumatic heart ailment and every three weeks he gets his injection at the Nuffield Clinic.
He adds 100 free heart surgeries later, and it would be difficult for any of us to imagine a Fiji without the Sai Prema Foundation, and the Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Heart Hospital.
The Prime Minister adds without them, some 25,000 mothers and their children around the country, would not have been served, nor over 10,000 heart screenings done.
In commending the dedication and expertise of the medical team, as well as the vision of the great ambassadors of Nasigatoka, the Tappoo Family, Rabuka says this Gift of Life ceremony of the Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital is the sort of initiative that the Coalition Government encourages and supports.
The Prime Minister says the government would not be able to cure all that has gone wrong in this country.
He says by investing $25-million into this state-of-the art Pediatric Cardiac Super Speciality Hospital, the Sai Prema Foundation compliments our public health system, plagued as it is by crumbling infrastructure and resource limitations together with an overworked and under-compensated work force.
Rabuka believes this kind of highly specialised treatment for children could cost more than $100,000 in hospitals overseas.
He says at the Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Heart Hospital, you will not find a billing counter, for all surgeries and treatment are done completely free of cost.
