Sheba Team Sets Sail for Papua New Guinea

Sheba doctors are a breath of fresh air for the island paradise, Papua New Guinea. Sheba's Israel Center for Disaster Medicine & Humanitarian Response has sent several Ophthalmology specialists to the remote nation in the South Pacific.

The Papua New Guinea project is in collaboration with “Natan” (a humanitarian NGO) at the request of and partial funding by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to Professor Elhanan Bar-On, Director of the Center, “We have deployed a team of two ophthalmologists and three nurses who are currently performing cataract surgeries on a ship belonging to an Australian humanitarian NGO. They will spend two weeks sailing around Papua New Guinea, docking near villages and towns where patients will come aboard and receive treatment. The head of the team is Dr. Eva Platner - an ophthalmologist. Her husband Dr. Ori Platner, although not on staff at Sheba, is a dentist and has joined the team to perform dental procedures on the ship."