Melbourne man Tim Maclatchy with his daughter Caroline before she was diagnosed with DiGeorge syndrome. Credit:Facebook She is putting up a mighty fight, but the life-saving operations Caroline needs are complicated and beyond the experience of doctors in Ho Chi Minh City – maybe even Vietnam. Her family desperately want her to be transported to Melbourne for life-saving heart surgery at the Royal Children's Hospital. Unfortunately the estimated cost of the medivac flight is at least $60,000, forcing the family to create a GoFundMe page to give Caroline the best chance of life. Mr Maclatchy, who has worked in Ho Chi Minh City for two years as an English teacher, said the past six months had been nightmarish for him and Ms Doan.

Tram Doan and baby Caroline . Credit:Facebook "It's been pretty terrible, but it's amazing what you can adjust to. At the start we were going in every three hours to feed her. "We just got used to waking up in the middle of the night and going in to feed her. "The bureaucracy of having to figure out birth certificates and passports and visas to get her to Australia has been pretty annoying and convoluted. "She has an Australian passport now and we're trying to get her a Medicare card.

"We've been talking to the Royal Children's Hospital and we just want to get her to Australia because the hospital service here – they haven't had much experience." Caroline's progress has been slow. At the moment she can't breathe without a ventilator because her trachea, which also needs surgery, is narrow and weak. A doctor in Hanoi might be able to perform the surgery, but Caroline can't fly on a ventilator. "That's the catch-22. We can't fly her while on a ventilator," Mr Maclatchy said.

"She needs to be on an oxygen mask and tank to get on a commercial medivac. Ms Doan said she had learnt a lot from her daughter about resilience but said the family desperately needed help. "We really need help. If she's in Australia she'll have more of a chance because our country is a developing country." "She will have more of a chance with ongoing treatment in Melbourne. "We call her 'little fighter'. I have learnt a lot from her," she said.

"If I get sick or something is painful, I remember it's nothing compared to what Caroline is going through." To donate to baby Caroline's cause, visit the GoFundMe page here.