Singo’s $1m gift helping gun Sydney surgeon save lives abroad

It took John ‘Singo’ Singleton all of 28 seconds to decide to donate $1 million to his mate, renowned Sydney neurosurgeon Marc Coughlan, who is saving lives in Papua New Guinea.

Men, women and children are trekking for days across the mountains of Papua New Guinea, hoping to meet the man they’ve heard can perform miracles.

Word of mouth has it that the neurosurgeon from Sydney is in town, and people are lining up, some sleeping at the clinic in wait.

Dr Marc Coughlan doesn’t disappoint, performing as many life-saving operations as he can during his two trips a year to the neighbouring country, removing as many of the “massive” head and spinal tumours as he can.

“It’s pretty touching, some of these people travel for days to get here,” Dr Coughlan told the Sunday Telegraph.

“We’ve had people sleeping at the clinic waiting. I was just so struck by the patients who are so desperate yet so grateful even though they have nothing.”

Dr Marc Coughlan who works with a team of volunteers called PNG Angels to perform brain and spine surgery on patients in Papua New Guinea free of charge. Picture: Supplied

“Some of the tumours are crazy, they’ve been left for so many years so they are monstrous-size tumours.”

Aside from the surgical challenges, Dr Coughlan and his team known as the PNG Angels are faced with extremely difficult conditions for post-operative care.

“Recently we did a brain tumour on this gorgeous young girl,” he said.

“She did really well but post-surgery in the ICU she just deteriorated.

“It was just heartbreaking to lose her. Surgery is only one piece of the equation.”

“A real challenge we have is the conditions for after-care. You can’t do these sophisticated surgeries without seeing them through because the complications can be horrific and post-operative conditions are challenging, there is no airconditioning, mould on the walls, dirty sheets, so it’s about creating the best environment we can.”

Dr Coughlan’s work has touched the heart of his great mate John Singleton, who decided “in all of 28 seconds” to donate $1 million to help these “neighbours across the ocean we largely ignore”.

Dr Coughlan has operated on almost 100 men, women and children — including this little cutie — in Papua New Guinea since 2019. Picture: Supplied

The money will be used for basic equipment that in Australia we take for granted.

“It will pay for some basic stuff, from suture materials, drapes, gloves, wound care,” Dr Coughlan said. “All those really basic consumables that will go far.”

“We will also hope to get some equipment like a spinal surgical bed, We have an X-ray machine so we might look at getting more advanced equipment so we can run a more sophisticated set-up.”

Since his first visit to Papua New Guinea in 2019 to help a colleague launch a microscope — because “without a microscope you can’t do anything in neurosurgery” — Dr Coughlan has performed just shy of 100 operations.

Dr Coughlan and his team at work. Picture: Supplied

A boy undergoes surgery in PNG thanks to the selfless Australian doctors and nurses working abroad. Picture: Supplied

“We really hit the ground running, started talking with the doctors on the ground about cases that needed to be done and we were thrown into the thick of things with massive tumours, whole queues of patients lined up who heard through the bush telegraph the doctors were coming,” he said.

“On our last trip we could do 20 cases but there were 30 kids with tumours, we couldn’t fit them all in. That’s one of the heart-breaking things.

“What we are really trying to do is train up local doctors on the ground so they can do their own surgeries so our work is just beginning.

“Our longterm vision is to teach the local surgeons and we have been engaging other Australian neurosurgeons with specific skill sets like paediatric neurosurgery to join us on these missions.”

For Singo it’s simple: we owe it to our Pacific nation friends to help them.

“Gee we’ve been slack to our friends throughout history until five minutes to midnight when we think China might be interested,” he said.

“Marc wanted to give back and now he has these doctors, nurses, anaesthetists doing this great work for nothing and the government gives them nothing to help.

“They give $650 million for a rugby league team and nothing for brain cancer. So I want to help where I can,” he said.

Donate to PNG Angels at www.pngangels.org.au