News and events

Pictured from left to right: Dato Dr Hamzah; Head of Cardiothoracic services Malaysia, Dr Jamalul Azizi; Head of Respiratory services Malaysia, Dato Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah; Director General of Health Malaysia, Dr Gerard Meachery, Consultant in Respiratory and Transplant Medicine, Freeman Hospital.

Dr Gerard Meachery, a Consultant in Respiratory and Transplant medicine, is helping colleagues at Serdang Hospital in the state of Selangor, Malaysia to further develop their heart and lung transplantation programme.

Dr Meachery, who was born in Johor Bahru, in the southern tip of Malaysia, has been working in partnership with the Director of Respiratory services in Malaysia, Dr Jamalul Azizi  to establish a mentoring programme for trainee respiratory specialist doctors.

To further cement the cross-continental partnership, Dr Meachery was invited to meet the Director General of Health Malaysia, Dato Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah with Dr Jamalul Azizi; Head of Respiratory services Malaysia, Dato Dr Hamzah; Head of Cardiothoracic services Malaysia and other government health officials in Malaysia earlier this year to share his Newcastle experiences and successes.

“It was a real honour and privilege to meet the Director of General Health Malaysia and demonstrates the highly esteemed reputation which Newcastle’s transplant programme has around the globe,” said Dr Meachery.

“The respiratory team based at both the Freeman and the RVI have been training doctors from the UK and all over the world sharing their specialist knowledge on all types of respiratory illnesses.

“These conditions can deteriorate to a point where the only treatment option to prolong life is a lung transplant, and the Freeman has extensive expertise in this field. I am delighted to see our partnership with Malaysia prosper further, harnessing the Freeman Hospital’s 30 years’ of experience in transplantation.”

Following the visit, Dato Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah placed the following on his Facebook page: “I was introduced to Dr Gerard Meachery who hails from Johor Bahru, and is the lead lung transplant physician in Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, UK. He sees a huge potential for a lung transplant programme in Hospital Serdang.”