A team of Melbourne doctors is preparing to perform life-changing surgery on a Papua New Guinea teenager who cannot access the care he needs in his home town.
Bradley Bola suffers from Crouzon Syndrome, a condition that creates a premature fusion of bones in the skull and results in abnormal growth of the head and face.
Born in Papua New Guinea, the now-17-year-old was unable to receive the medical care necessary for his condition as a baby.
At 18 months, a trip to Australia gave him a chance at transform his future when surgeons operated on him pro bono, restoring and aligning his facial features.
He was brought back again for more surgery when he was 10 and now he's returned to Melbourne for further treatment.
"I'm really amazed for what the doctors have been doing for me," Bradley said.
"They've been supporting me and they've worked throughout my operations, it has been life-saving for me."
Maxillofacial surgeon Associate Professor Andrew Heggie is again leading a team of doctors who are operating on Bradley pro bono.
He said Bradley's surgeries over the years had been challenging.
"We try to advance the mid-face as far as possible in the pre-pubertal time period, in order to minimise the deformity which is already quite obvious,” he said.
"But as they grow, the jaw just does not keep pace and a lot of the original pattern returns."
Associate Professor Heggie said conditions like Bradley's are rare.
"The signalling that normally allows the articulations between the plates of bone to expand with brain growth, because it's brain growth that's the driver of the head size, if that fuses early,” he said.
“Then the brain can't grow, it pushes against the under surface of the skull, and in a large percentage of patients the pressure inside the head increases."
"And this is why he has a shunt, which allows drainage of CSF [cerebralspinal fluid] to his tummy to keep the pressure down."
But Bradley wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC), a charity which relies heavily on donations to save the lives of children in disadvantaged communities.
Gaynor Schols from Rotary's Southern District, said the group aimed to reach as many children as possible.
"We only bring children in when they can't have the surgery in their home country,” she said. “A lot of them are very primitive countries, often Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Timor Leste, the Solomons, places where hospitalisation is fairly poor, and the surgeon and the hospital is just not able to do this surgery."
Bradley's surgery, set to take place in the next few weeks, is expected to last about five hours.
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