A team of doctors are heading to Ethiopia to perform needed surgeries on young children.
The team is mostly made up of Kelowna plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and volunteers. John McCormack, President of RESTOR International said it’s heartwarming to know this is coming from Kelowna.
“This is Kelowna doctors for the main part and volunteers. A little group from Kelowna is going three quarters of the way around the world to change people’s lives. I think in the past we’ve missed the value of that in what we do. It’s heartwarming to know that this is coming from little old Kelowna.”
Other doctors and volunteers call Edmonton, Victoria and Seattle home.
A previous group of doctors and volunteers travelled to Bahir Dar, Ethiopia in 2014 and this group will return to the same hospital in April. The doctors will be performing cleft lip and palate, uterine prolapse and burn surgeries to young people who are in need of these procedures.
McCormack said during the last visit in 2014 instead of telling them they would be returning and doing such and such surgeries, they decided to ask the community what surgeries they needed. Cleft lip and palate surgeries were not in the top two needed procedures because so many doctors and groups around the world are doing them.
Instead it was uterine prolapse surgeries. This surgery is needed because many women start to have babies at a young age and have multiple babies. After a short while their uteruses start to fall out. McCormack said these surgeries will be extremely beneficial to the women in the area.
The top surgery that was needed was burn surgery. RESTOR has partnered with the hospital in Bahir Dar to perform the after care of the burn surgeries because the surgery patients will have to have care up to 10 days after the procedure. These trips are extremely expensive but the surgeries are free of charge to the patients. McCormack said they do a lot of fundraising before leaving and they also have a grant to help with the costs.
These surgeries will be for young children between the ages of six and 16. The local hospital put out a call to citizens to see who needed the surgeries, as well as RESTOR put advertisements in the local papers.
In 2014 there were 78 surgeries that happened. This year patients who received the surgeries will return for follow-up surgeries if needed and more than 50 new surgeries will be done.
“I still get that lump in my throat just seeing the pictures, the before and after pictures. The neat thing about it is we’re helping people’s lives change. When you get a burn or a cleft lip and palate in these countries you are shunned and shamed,” explained McCormack.
“When you show you can change a person’s life and they have a future and they can walk in public with confidence and pride it really does affect me.”
The team of doctors will leave on April 1 and will be returning at the end of the month.
Kelowna volunteers include Dina Kotler, Peter Schultz, Lisa Hammond, Jean Bird, David Nelson, Lisa van den Brink, Debbie Earnshaw, Kim East, Dr. Bill East, Dr. David Williamson and Dr. Stan Valnicek.
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.
