The second person to have had a successful innovative heart valve replacement in New Zealand is looking forward to getting back out walking.
Peg Robinson, 89, of Cambridge and Noel Howard, 78, of Thames had the surgery last Thursday.
Mrs Robinson, who moved to New Zealand 50 years ago from Belfast in Northern Ireland, has recovered well. She was expected to be discharged from Waikato Hospital tomorrow.
Mr Howard remains in Waikato Hospital.
The procedures involved replacing a valve in the aortic artery through a small incision in the chest while the heart was still beating, rather than going up through an artery in the groin.
"Normal surgery was absolutely no use so they tried this new procedure and it seems to have worked very well," Mrs Robinson said.
"I'm hoping to get back to normal. I like walking. I think it's early days just to say exactly how it will go but up to the moment it's gone pretty well."
Ailsa Fleming, 86, was last week to be the first person in the southern hemisphere to have the procedure, but she died on the operating table due to a rare complication.
