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An historic heart operation has been successfully performed at Waikato Hospital, with the patient expected to head home tomorrow.
Doctors have placed a self expanding artificial valve in a 79-year-old Tauranga woman via an artery in her upper thigh.
It is the first such procedure to be carried out in a New Zealand public hospital.
Waikato Hospital head of medicine Dr Clyde Wade says it has been a wonderful success, with the woman well on the road to recovery. He says it is far less invasive than traditional open heart surgery, with a drastically shorter recovery time.
- NEWSTALK ZB
