Mercy dash Saves Timorese Tot
When Maria da Costa was born on May 26, 2008 unable to swallow, her mother Celestina Maufelo sensed something was desperately wrong so the young mum and her baby travelled hours by dirt road in a truck from her remote village of Besilau to hospital in the capital, Dili.
Maria was diagnosed with oesophageal atresia - a rare condition that prevents breast milk from reaching a baby's stomach. Without corrective surgery, unavailable in East Timor, she would have died.
ROMAC arranged for Maria to fly to Brisbane for a life-saving operation at the Mater Children's Hospital.
Having to deal with Maria's illness has transported Ms Maufelo, who does not speak English, to a different world. She didn't even have a word for "plane" before her flight.
"When I asked her how she had travelled to Australia, she said: 'By something in the sky'," explained Sister Eufemia Lacerda, a Brisbane-based Canossian nun, originally from East Timor. "She'd never seen a plane before. This world is ... different from hers."
Until she had her passport photograph taken for the trip, Ms Maufelo had never even set eyes on a camera. And, although her passport lists her as being 27, she doesn't actually know how old she is. "I'm probably 24 or 25," she told Sister Eufemia.
She was understandably overawed when she first saw Maria hooked up to life-saving equipment in the Mater's intensive care ward after her surgery.
"How wonderful this country is that a machine can save the life of a child like that," Ms Maufelo said.
Two weeks after her operation, Maria weighs 2.5kg, gaining weight and expected to return home in the next few weeks.
Her mother said she had "heartfelt gratitude" for ROMAC and the Mater doctors and nurses who had saved her baby's life.
