Last Thursday night SACH Australia said farewell to Dr Yayu Mekonnen.

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Trained by Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), Dr Yayu Mekonnen, Ethiopia's first fully-trained paediatric heart surgeon has just finished his final week of an 18 month fellowship at the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH), Melbourne Australia and returned to his home country to continue his dedicated work with the support of SACH.

He and his Australian family will return to Ethiopia next week and he will be the first fully qualified Ethiopian paediatric cardiac surgeon to return to his country of birth, to live and work in Ethiopia, a country of over 100 million people. In Ethiopia, over 30,000 children are born each year with heart defects, with many requiring life saving surgery.

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Save a Child's Heart is supporting the Ethiopian pediatric cardiac team, including Dr Yayu to begin their work in Ethiopia and begin life saving surgeries.

Those who joined us on this special evening was The Ethiopian Ambassador, Her Excellency Tirfu Kidanemariam Gebrehiwet and Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission, Mr. Ron Gerstenfeld as our distinguished guests.

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Dr Yayu, we wish you and your team in Ethiopia all the best! Australia was very lucky to have you and you will be missed by many.

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We really need your help so we can continue to train doctors like Dr Yayu and save children's lives.

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If you wish to donate to Save a Child's Heart including supporting the first Ethiopian pediatric cardiac team.

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