Mother’s Day: Premature baby saved by Royal Flying Doctor Service

WHEN her premature baby boy needed life-saving heart surgery in Melbourne, an Adelaide mother turned to the Flying Doctor for help.

Dr Rajani Koirala with her son Arnav, whose life was saved by the RFDS as a nine-day-old.

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ADELAIDE mother Dr Rajani Koirala knows she would not be celebrating Mother’s Day today with her son Arnav were it not for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

In March 2013, Dr Koirala, from Beaumont, was 28 weeks pregnant with twins when she went into premature labour. Rushed to Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital, she was put on medication to slow the labour process. Four weeks later, her sons Ayush and Arnav were born by caesarean section.

Eight weeks premature, the twins received around-the-clock medical attention from staff at the hospital. But, despite their best efforts, doctors quickly realised something was wrong with Arnav. Born weighing just 970g, the tiny baby was losing weight and failing to thrive.

Tests revealed Arnav had been born with a coarctation of the aorta, a narrowing of the body’s largest artery, which was reducing blood flow to his body, starving him of vital life-giving nutrients.

“There is a communication from mum’s vein to the child’s vein, which is how they get blood supplied to their heart,” Dr Koirala said. “When they are born, it should close but Arnav’s vein wasn’t closing.”

Without specialist surgery, Arnav could die from heart failure. His survival depended on being transferred to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, 725km from Adelaide.

An eight-hour road trip was non-viable for the fragile nine-day-old, and so the hospital called on the services of the RFDS in Adelaide.

Within hours of the decision being made to transfer Arnav interstate for surgery, he and his father Dipak were on board an RFDS flight to Melbourne, joined on board by a flight nurse to administer critical care during the 90-minute journey.

Four days later, after successful surgery, the RFDS flew Arnav and his father back to Adelaide for an emotional reunion with his mother and brother.

Five years on, Arnav is a healthy child.