THE chances of finding true love at the hospital while being admitted as a patient is quite rare.

This was the reality for couple Filipe Kuruvoli and Peceli Qasevakatini of Kadavu who fell in love while being treated at the Tamavua Hospital in 1991.

A hospital romance that blossomed between the two patients culminated to a wedding that was held at the hospital and covered by this newspaper.

On this day the article was published in this newspaper.

Filipe Kuruvoli 42, and his bride Peceli Qasevakatini 42, exchanged marriage vows to become man and wife in the presence of about 60 staff and patients of Tamavua Hospital, family and friends.

The couple was married in the medical rehabilitation unit of the hospital by Reverend Tikiko Nakete of the Methodist Church.

According to the article, Filipe had been a patient at the hospital for 22 years.

He injured his spinal cord in 1968 when he fell off a horse and was admitted at the CWM Hospital.

He was transferred to the Tamavua Hospital in 1969. Aside from some arm movement, Filipe was paralysed from the neck down and moved around in a wheelchair.

He and his wife have known each other since they were 10 years old as they grew up together in Kadavu.

After Filipe’s accident, the couple who were just friends then did not see each other until September 1990 when Peceli was admitted to Tamavua Hospital because of lung complications.

That same year, their friendship renewed and they decided to marry.

Peceli was discharged earlier this year but continued visiting Filipe at the hospital. Despite his paralysis, Filipe lives in a ward of the hospital for self-dependent patients.

He takes care of himself and has a talent for fashioning handicraft items, played the ukulele and guitar and sang too.

The matron in charge of the rehabilitation unit, Sister Marseu Kaitu’u said she had known Filipe since 1974.

She said he was one of the best patients at the hospital.

“He has a happy personality and is well known by everyone,” she said.

Last year Filipe represented Fiji when he went to Japan for three weeks to sing and play in four music concerts.

Peceli works at Tanoa House as a general helper.

Chief medical officer of the rehabilitation unit, Dr Jagdish Maharaj said Filipe and Peceli’s marriage was the ultimate achievement in rehabilitation.

“Paralysis is not a barrier for getting married and having a family,” he said.

Dr Maharaj added that no-one had expected Filipe to get married because he was a quiet person.