Some stories from our first day of surgery!

Everyone was on the bus bright and early at 0700h. We arrived after a journey through the old town of Quito to a quiet hospital since the "Carnival" long holiday weekend is underway.

Here above is little 2 year old Vanessa being prepared for surgery by nurse Erin Nikolic. She's a sweet little thing with the sad misfortune of having bilateral dysplastic hips. She needed pelvic osteotomies to correct the deformity and an open reduction of the left hip.

She needs to grow up walking without a limp!

Below, you see her at the start of her anesthetic as the staff prepare her for surgery. That's Blair Gallant, Anesthetic Technician on the right and Eileen Guilfoyle RN in the background. The long arm of anesthesiologist Andriy Rodyniuk holds the mask!

Meanwhile in the next theatre, Dr. Sam Stetsko is inserting the spinal on the first adult patient of the day. She's a little woman of 54 years of age with severe osteoarthritis and she needs a total hip.


When little Vanessa's surgery was finished she got a nice green cast from chest to toes and here is the x-ray to show a nice reduction of her hips.



Dr. Ed Masson is very careful about selecting the right prostheses for each patient. We've brought down a large supply at no cost courtesy of Smith and Nephew.

Have you been watching those videos? I thought you would like to see the man behind the camera! This is Mr. Steve Van Deist. He's here as an interpreter but his real profession is at Global Television in Edmonton. He leads a mean group workout too!

And finally I thought I would show you a sequence of how a patient gets up to the ward on the second floor above the operating room. It's a long trip for Vanessa! It's up the ramp and around the corner. Then after the elevator is unlocked by Pablo, Kathy Angus and Charlette Opper move her into the elevator. Then it's down the ramp and onto the ward. Each patient gets manoevered into their room and transferred to their bed.

On the left, Nurse Mae Pascoe consults with the local Tierra Nueva nurse about the care of the patient.

I hope you're enjoying the blog! Let us know what you think!

Thanks, John