Last Weeks Speaker - Janet Hewson

“Hope Where there Is no Hope” (the vision of ROMAC)
Janet is one of the volunteers involved in ROMAC – Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children, and she gave us a brilliant presentation about the contribution that  Rotary Australia and NZ makes through ROMAC to children’s medical health in the Pacific Islands.
She has a master’s in nursing and although now retired, was the Clinical Coordinator at Mercy Hospital.
Janet is our District Representative and has made trips herself. She described setting up a temporary clinic outside her tent. One particular project was to teach the village children how to put band aids over their many mosquito bites to protect them from the horrible infections that develop because of the flies that breed on the rubbish around the villages.
ROMAC brings children with severe deformities and serious life-threatening illnesses to Starship Hospital and arranges for the anaesthetists and specialists who volunteer their time and that are needed to give them the ‘life changing and/or dignity restoring” surgery that they cannot get in their own countries. Many of these children are shunned in their own communities.
Severe burns, tumours, heart conditions, deformities are some of the health issues these children have.
500 children have received such help over the years, and currently there is a backlog caused by COVID delays of 40 children waiting for their chance. Ronald McDonald House provides accommodation for them and their families.
A team of over 200 contribute to the scheme., and the scheme has been going for over 33 years and involves 20 countries (Fiji,Papua New Guinea, Timor, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga. )
Janet challenged us as she finished her compelling presentation by asking-
“CAN WE AND OUR CLUB MAKE A DONATION TO ROMAC’.