A NINE-YEAR-OLD East Timorese girl, Ila Amaral, has died because no Australian hospital would give her a life-saving operation.

For more than 12 months Dan Murphy, a doctor who runs a clinic for the poor in Dili, tried to convince Australian hospitals to accept her for surgery to correct her defective mitral heart valve.

Death sentence ... Ila Amaral , pictured with her parents, in November. Credit:Basil Rolandsen

"I blame myself first - I was unable to find the words to make things move for her," Dr Murphy told the Herald by telephone from the Bairo Pite Clinic, where Ila died last week.

A Victorian cardiologist, Noel Bayley, examined Ila in Dili in November. He said she needed open heart surgery. A cardiac team from Sydney had offered to travel to East Timor to perform the operation but permission to use local facilities was refused by Timorese authorities.