Vinna from Vanuatu has come to New Zealand to receive urgent medical attention for her badly infected leg.
Kindhearted Kiwis rally to the cause of a sick girl from cyclone-hit Vanuatu.
The determination of a loving mother and the generosity of Kiwis is giving a young ni-Vanuatu girl the power to walk again, more than two years after a life-threatening infection robbed her of her mobility.
On July 11, 8-year-old Vinna Sapa will undergo surgery at Waikato Hospital on her right leg to repair two fractures in her femur and clear an infection in the bone.
It's a complex operation but the result will be life-changing for Vinna and her mother Korina Tavo, who have travelled 2100km from their home on the remote island of Tanna to Hamilton for the procedure.
The treatment is expected to restore Vinna's ability to walk - something she hasn't been able to do since one Sunday morning in November 2014 when she woke up seriously ill with osteomyelitis - an infection in her bone.
"She got a fever and then her whole body swelled up," Tavo said.
Over the next two years Vinna was in out and out of hospital.
Doctors in Vanuatu did all they could with the resources they had.
Vinna Sapa, 8, has come to Hamilton with her mother Korina Tavo from Tanna in Vanuatu so that she can get urgent medical attention for a serious infection in her leg. Photo / Alan Gibson
Vinna was in constant pain, unable to put any weight on her leg. She couldn't go to school because Tavo had to carry her everywhere.
"I felt so very sorry for her," the devoted mum told the Herald on Sunday.
"She didn't play with other kids, just stayed at home, because her leg was swollen."
In March 2015 Cyclone Pam struck, devastating the family's village and destroying their home.
Tanna was cut off from the rest of the country for about 15 months but Tavo refused to give up and continued to take Vinna to the local hospital - normally about an hour's walk along a steep, potholed road - for antibiotic treatment whenever she could afford the NZ$20 it cost to hire a truck to get her there safely.
Then in June 2016 a Marine Reach medical ship, run by a Tauranga-based Christian group, arrived at a nearby village.
Vinna's parents carried her there and waited all day for her to be assessed.
The organisation didn't have the equipment onboard to treat her so took Vinna to its Family Care Centre in Port Vila for further treatment.
Vinna Sapa, 8, has come to Hamilton with her mother Korina Tavo from Tanna in Vanuatu so that she can get urgent medical attention for a serious infection in her leg. Photo / Alan Gibson
Volunteers gave her crutches and took x-rays of her leg, which revealed the two breaks, but the hospital had run out of antibiotics.
In late 2016 Kiwis Michelle DellaBarca, a nurse, and Dr Gillian Twinem - part of a volunteer group with charity Fruit of the Pacific, which was building a cyclone resistant house in Vanuatu - visited the Family Care Centre and met Vinna and Tavo.
They told Fruit of the Pacific director Kylie DellaBarca Steel Vinna's story and when the group returned to New Zealand they started fundraising to bring Vinna and Tavo here for treatment.
Many kindhearted doctors, nurses, volunteers and ordinary Kiwis got behind the cause, donating time, money and medical expertise.
ROMAC, a rotary organisation that helps children from the South Pacific in need of medical treatment, organised a host family for Vinna and Tavo to stay with and arranged for orthopaedic surgeon Dr Richard Willoughby to perform the surgery.
ROMAC New Zealand chair Glenys Parton said it was hard to put a dollar value on how much Vinna's treatment would cost at full price, but estimated it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"Many willing hands make it happen. The great thing I've noticed about being a Kiwi that makes my heart really swell [is] we as Kiwis are very unique in the world in that we have a very can-do attitude."
Being able to walk again will mean Vinna can go back to school and play with other children.
Tavo said she was happy her daughter was able to come to New Zealand for treatment.
"I would like her to walk without crutches in Tanna, for the family to see how well she was in New Zealand. They will be surprised to see her walking."
