Heart patients...Timoci Tagiciverata and Josefa Justine Qionibaravi with their air tickets to India where they will have their operation. Picture: SITIVENI MOCE

TWO primary school students and a four-year-old boy from Kadavu head for India this Sunday to undergo open heart surgery for three weeks at the Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai.

The three are Josefa Justin Qionibaravi, a 10-year-old student of Nausori Primary School; Shivangani Neha Chand, 10, of Rabulu in Tavua; and Timoci Tagiciverata of Ravitaki in Kadavu.

Their operation and airfares total $54,000 -- $18,000 per child. The same treatment cost children in Australia and New Zealand $40,000 to $50,000.

The three patients were identified by the Fiji College of General Practitioners (FCGP) Childrens Heart Foundation through paediatricians in major hospitals. The Vodafone ATH Foundation is sponsoring two patients' operation and airfares while the Fiji Water Foundation sponsors the other.

Mr Qionibaravi has ventricular septal defect and an arterial septal defect. A visiting cardiologist performed an echocardiogram in March and found the heart defect.

Mr Tagiciverata has a hole in his heart and was often admitted at the Vunisea Hospital until he was diagnosed when his case was referred to Suva's CWM Hospital.

FCGP Childrens Heart Foundation president Dr Ponnu Goundar said these were difficult cases and India was the best option.