Media

The official Launch of the Mutima Project took place on the 29th October 2009

After months of planning, we celebrated the official launch of the Mutima Project in grand style. Thanks to some brilliant team work and the creative efforts of a dedicated group, the venue echoed to the drum beats of Africa. It looked the part with a display of masks, photographs and artefacts showcasing Zambia. Posters and charts showed the surgical procedures and explained the need for it.

New Zealand medics have launched a plan to carry out life-saving heart surgery in Zambia

By LORELEI MASON - One News, 29th October 2009

A team of medical experts aim to save over 100 lives in Zambia by setting up the country's first ever cardiac unit.

The 35 person unit was inspired by Munanga Mwandila in Christchurch who has related tales of his homeland's health system to colleagues.

"There is a huge burden with conditions such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. These are conditions which take up the bulk of the health resources," Dr Mwandila told ONE News.

With most of Zambia's 12 million people living in poverty, the team plan to make five trips to Zambia over the next five years to perform the country's first ever heart operations.

Cardiac surgeon Harsh Singh will lead the team, who have all volunteered their time for the project.

"It's going to be a big undertaking, [but] a lot of people have raised their hands and it's just amazing to see," says Singh. "The way they are taking ownership and putting so much effort into it is something that's really amazed me.

"We'll go each year and be able to train the local staff, medical as well as paramedical staff, to actually be able to deliver it in the future themselves."

The team aim to treat around 100 young Zambians with rheumatic heart disease: a condition which destroys the heart valves and causes premature death.

"Usually this disease manifests clinically at that age in the twenties and thirties and so that would be the target population to look at in this instant," adds Singh.

The group of medical staff will operate at the university hospital in the capital Lusaka where they will provide their own equipment and drugs.

Surgeon to save lives in Zambia

By REBECCA TODD - The Press, 28th October 2009

A Christchurch cardiothoracic surgeon aims to give more than 100 young Zambians vital heart surgery.

Harsh Singh heads the Mutima Project, which will fund a Christchurch team to travel to Zambia to perform heart-valve replacement operations.

Singh said rheumatic fever was common in the African country, with some people developing heart-valve problems.

Without surgery, most would be dead by their mid-30s.

The idea of going to Zambia came from a Zambian doctor Singh had worked with in Christchurch.

More than 300 patients were waiting for surgery, Singh said.

The Mutima Project, to be launched today at St George's Hospital in Christchurch, will do 15 to 20 heart-valve replacements annually in each of the next five years.

Singh said the 35-strong team hoped to train a Zambian doctor to perform the surgeries once it had left.

Companies had donated the valves and other equipment, and an "amazing" number of people had helped in different ways, he said.

He calculated each trip would cost about $500,000, but that was a small price to pay to save so many lives, he said.

"I have the skills to deliver it, and why not?" Singh said.

Hon Jim Anderton

Member of Parliament for Wigram
Progressive Leader

29 October 2009 Media Statement

16,000 children are dying from hunger every day because food aid is now at its lowest level in twenty years, but the National government remains determined not to use our aid for ‘poverty reduction,” says Progressive leader and MP Jim Anderton.

The head of the United Nation’s World Food Programme recently announced that tens of millions of the world’s poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because some OECD countries have slashed aid after the financial crisis.

Jim Anderton was talking at the launch of the Mutima Project in Christchurch tonight.

The Mutima project is a volunteer organisation and will send a team of cardiac surgeons to Zambia to perform life-saving heart surgery on young adults.

“I commend them for the strength of their personal commitment and their determination to serve. We are a stronger and more caring community because of people like these Christchurch surgeons. Because of them, a hundred young Zambians will have a second chance at life.”

About 60% of the Zambian population are living on less than a $1 per day.

“But where is the urgency from the National government to save a generation of children who will die from starvation if the world does nothing?”

The National government has recently announced that it will abolish the goal of ‘poverty reduction’ for our aid, and replace it with a goal of ‘economic development’.

“I am a strong champion of economic development - I used to be Minister of Economic Development. But you can’t do much business development if people don’t have enough to eat or clean water to drink.”

“I also want to see the National government do more about bad governance and corruption in some of the poorest countries.”

“I want to see New Zealand get behind a new international Natural Resource Charter which sets out ‘best practice’ in countries with natural resources like oil (or copper in Zambia), so proceeds of those resources go to the poorest people and don’t end up in the pockets of the corrupt,” says Jim Anderton.