Saving Thomas

As doctors we came across this Indonesian boy, with big searching eyes and what we think is a deformed heart from birth. He has been struggling for his whole short life of six years, for a breath. How could we not do something?

We were lucky to have Dr Caroline Meadows on board, a paediatrician from Northland. Her provisional diagnosis is congenital heart disease which is now causing heart failure. We estimate that without surgical intervention Thomas will die within 6 to 12 months. It could be a lot quicker if he gets an infection. You can see from the video how unwell he is but looking in his eyes he has hope.

Stage 1

After weighing things up we feel compelled to try and help. Stage 1 is to get him to Jakarta which is a long way from Gam. He will need to take a long boat trip then a flight. Our aim to get him the blood test and echocardiogram of his heart, to see if it is surgically correctable. We may be too late, we can’t leave it any longer.

We have rung his parents who said this through the guide.

“Thomas parents very happy to hear this good news and express their thankful for your generosity of helping Thomas to have the medical treatments.

As Thomas parents said to me that they been praying every day and waiting for so long for this help. What a miracle that you have been send by God to meet them and see Thomas.

I said to Thomas parents that through Dr Tom we hope something will happen and help Thomas for the future.

Meanwhile, my suggestion is we have to evacuate Thomas to the nearest hospital in Sorong to have a recommendation to proceed the treatment in Jakarta.

At this stage we have to take along Adrian the local nurse to accompany Thomas and his parents too.” Oswald Huma

We would like to go to Jakarta to see what the tests reveal and what the next steps will be. We estimate stage 1 may cost between 10K and 20K

Stage 2

If the tests are favourable then Thomas will need life-saving surgery. Until we get a firm diagnosis and test, we wont know if the surgery is possible in Jakarta or we need to get him to Starship hospital, Auckland New Zealand.

This may end up costing not only hundreds of thousands of dollars, but also lots of time and energy in supporting Thomas and his family. We think documenting Thomas journey will enable us to raise the funds necessary to achieve stage 1 and maybe stage 2.

We are asking you to donate money to the cause. It is not an easy journey and we don’t know how it will end, but at least we can try. Once you see the video you will feel the same as our filmmaker Mike Bhana, Dr Caroline Meadows, myself and the other doctors on the trip.

We look forward to your support and hope you can share this page with your friends and family, and join us on this journey of hope to make a big difference. It will be the difference between life and death for Thomas.

Please check out this short video on Thomas:

http://vimeo.com/110742235

Yours faithfully

Dr Tom Mulholland

Medical Director

www.exploremedical.net