Real life story - Fiji

Over a year and a half period, a Fijian girl went often to her local rural hospital complaining of swollen joints and shortness of breath; her rheumatic heart disease was not detected and she was sent home with asthma medications and painkillers. In January 2006, when she was 7 years old, she was admitted to the district hospital with severe respiratory distress and knee pain, and was started on pneumonia treatment. A senior nurse who had attended a World Heart Federation workshop on rheumatic heart disease recognized the symptoms and the child was transferred to the main hospital. She was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease, but it was too late to save her: she died the same day.