Paediatric surgeon Dr Askar Kukkady, pictured with a young patient in Samoa, as part of his voluntary work with the Royal Australian College of Surgeons' (RACS) Global Health programme. Photo / RACS
Paediatric surgeon Dr Askar Kukkady, pictured with a young patient in Samoa, as part of his voluntary work with the Royal Australian College of Surgeons' (RACS) Global Health programme. Photo / RACS
Twenty years later, Dr Askar Kukkady is still performing life-changing surgeries; not only in Waikato, where he is based, butalso helping children in the Pacific – namely in Samoa.
Kukkady became a well-known name in October 2004, when he led a team of 55 surgical staff at Waikato Hospital to carry out the procedure on then 5-month-old sisters Abbey and Sarah Hose, who were born joined at the hip.
Kukkady was later said to have worked from 8am on the day of the operation until dawn the next day – a harrowing 22 hours – painstakingly working to separate the spine, spinal nerve and organs of the babies.
Some of the surgical team at Waikato Hospital involved in the successful operation on conjoined twins Abbey and Sarah Hose in 2004. Photo / Waikato DHB
His passion for paediatrics continues today and has led him to be a part of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Global Health programme, which regularly sends a team of surgeons to one of 11 Pacific Island countries involved, on a volunteer basis.
The surgeon has just returned from Samoa, where he operated on up to 25 children at the island nation’s Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital near Apia.
‘To see them get better – there’s nothing better’
Kukkady’s passion for helping children is evident when he speaks about his work – particularly those children who do not have access to the healthcare they desperately need.
“I could do something for the less-advantaged population – and very deserving population of children – who are suffering.
“And here I am, who can give up some of my time to go and look after them,” Kukkady said.
“To see them get better, there’s nothing better than seeing a child get better. That gives me a lot of satisfaction.”
Dr Askar Kukkady of Waikato Hospital (right), pictured with fellow top paediatric surgeon Dr Celine Hamid of Australia in Samoa this month. Photo / RACS
In Samoa, he worked on several young children with Hirschsprung’s Disease – a condition where a part of the intestine does not have nerve cells. They cannot pass stools, cannot feed and are prone to vomiting.
Other day-to-day operations he performed included work to repair hernias.
“I grew up in India, trained in India and, for various reasons, decided to settle down here,” Kukkady said.
“One of the things that makes me feel guilty is that I’m not able to look after the children back home.”
Members of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons global health programme and staff at the Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital in Samoa. Photo / RACS
In India, however, there are many other very well-trained paediatrics teams doing the work he is doing, he said.
But in parts of the Pacific, for example, help is needed. Although local surgeons can carry out other preliminary procedures, more serious operations can result in children waiting for months and sometimes years before they are seen.
Some of those children are able to be brought to New Zealand or Australia, and as far as India, via help from Samoa’s government. However, in other cases, children can die waiting.
“We do what we can, but that is only part of what we do. We need to continue to provide support to them,” Kukkady said.
One of his big goals is to train and help medical staff and paediatric surgeons in Samoa, and other parts of the Pacific, so more children can get help locally and quickly.
“That’ll be my ultimate goal – to have one or two people from the local Samoan surgical community who would deal with most, if not all, the problems that they come across in the children there.”
Vaimoana Mase is the Pasifika editor for the Herald’s Talanoa section, sharing stories from the Pacific community. She won junior reporter of the year at the then Qantas Media Awards in 2010 and won the best opinion writing award at the 2023 Voyager Media Awards.
