TRAVELLING over to a Pacific Island for most people is usually done for a much-needed holiday break, but for visiting urologist, Professor Richard Grills, and Western District Health Service (WDHS) nurse practitioner, Stuart Willder, the trip they recently returned from was part of specialist medical aid organised by the Royal College of Australian Surgeons, the latest being to Samoa.

“The Royal College of Surgeons coordinate up to four aid programs each year to the Pacific Islands,” Mr Willder said.

“We have previously gone to Vanuatu, but this was our first time to Samoa.”

Along with urologist Prof Grills from Geelong, a theatre nurse from Geelong, an anaesthetist from Brisbane, and a significant amount of medical equipment, the week was a chance to offer some important surgical care to needy patients, but also help the local medical services get some high-level expertise they can use after the team has left.

The process begins with the college calling for expressions of interest from surgical teams for an upcoming aid trip with an emphasis for certain specialities.

“There (might be) an option for urology or cardiology or there might be paediatrics or an orthopaedic team,” Mr Willder said.

This was Mr Willder’s sixth trip and he said it was great to be able to offer such practical help to a needy part of the world.

“These countries rely on aid provision from other countries including equipment, technology and specific surgical procedures that may not be delivered by their local health professionals,” he said.

“Obviously, it’s an aid trip - we’re trying to provide … services they don’t usually provide - they’ll have general surgical and medical care, but they might not have access to specialist procedures.

“Urology is a speciality - including the bladder, kidney, prostates, and problems that often occur in these organs, - so, some big cases that they may not have the capacity to deliver to their local community.

“Following previous trips to Vanuatu, we brought one of their surgeons out and we trained them for a year to do specific urological surgery that we perform, and that went really well.

“We (also) brought some nursing staff over and trained them in Geelong.”

Asked whether something similar might happen for the latest destination, Mr Willder said it was too early to say.

“That might happen in Samoa but I don’t know - this was our first year,” he said.

“The aim is to educate and support them. We take all our equipment, so we don’t rely on using their equipment - we would rather not use their supplies if at all possible.

“The aim is to take a designated team across with equipment and supplies to undertake surgery for their population. It’s also an opportunity to train and develop their skills.

Mr Willder said the assistance didn’t end with the surgery.

“There’s a lot of post-surgical issues that can happen in the ward especially if they’ve not seen it before, or they don’t know how to recover … my job is to help the staff learn and build their capacity with certain surgeries,” he said.

While there was a lot of logistics and paperwork required to make the trips happen, he said it was worth doing as the overall benefit was difficult to measure.

“You want to go over there and do surgery that they were not able to deliver themselves,” Mr Willder said.

“Also you want to deliver surgery that will save them sending a patient overseas.”

He gave an example that also ended being a highlight of the trip.

“We did one operation which took about 11 hours,” Mr Willder said.

“It was a 25-year-old woman … if she didn’t have surgery, she possibly would have died in the next few years (but also) she wouldn’t have the means, but the government would then have to pay for her to go to New Zealand or somewhere else to have the surgery that was required, and that could cost up to $100,000.

“It was a big case – (and) certainly there’s a great outcome from that.”

Mr Willder said taking a week of annual leave to do voluntary work of this kind was extremely rewarding - “you can’t really measure it in money” - and admitted it “does bring you back to earth”. “You come back and realise we’re pretty lucky to have such good access to quality health care in Australia,” he said.