A new voyage for CAMTA

In August, the CAMTA executive made a decision to support the Hospital Canto a la Vida of the Tierra Nueva Foundation in Quito, Ecuador by supplying hospital equipment to outfit the beautiful new building.

It's been a flurry of phone calls, visits to the hospital equipment depot and arrangements.  But finally today

 IT ALL STARTED TO HAPPEN!

Just after 10 this morning our wonderful three year old container arrived to receive the surplus hospital equipment that has been stored at Alberta Hospital Edmonton.  The volunteer team was ready and waiting.

Pablo Valenzuela, Sara Irving, Jason Tong, Andy Escalona and Matt Moreau were ready for the heavy lifting.  Glenn Day and I were there for the logistics.

There is no proper loading dock.  The gang lifted the stretchers one by one into the container.

Matthew rolled them to the back and locked the wheels.

Glenn helped the forklift driver load the operating room tables one by one onto the forklift.

Pablo rolled the operating room light into the back of the container.

I provided sidewalk supervision whilst the gang secured the neonatal beds with their tall overhead lights.

Here's Jason and Sara tightening up the belts!

And then with the mission accomplished, we poised with the truck driver for a photograph.

back:  Andy Escalona, Matt Moreau, Pablo Valenzuela, Jason Tong, Ken our truck driver

front:  Glenn Day, Sara Irving.

in the background:  CAMTA's FIRST CONTAINER SHIPMENT!!!!

Glenn then ceremoniously (mischievously) secured the container.

And to make sure there were no surprises and all arrangements were complete I followed the truck driver all the way to the Overland Container Service yard.  Here's the container going into storage!

What happens now?

In about 10 days we hope that more surplus hospital and computer equipment will be available.  We are waiting on paperwork!  And then the Canadian Food for the Hungry IMED staff will bring their trailer and tractor from Saskatoon to pick-up that container and return it to their home base for unloading, inventory and reloading with even more great hospital items like beds, stretchers, anesthetic machines and an ultrasound machine or two.  We even have two dental offices!  After customs paperwork we hope to ship the container by sea with arrival inland at Quito early in the spring.

Check out the Canadian Food for the Hungry IMED program here.

Watch for more news as the container program progesses!

Thanks.

John

Mission 2010 Teams Announced

The ninth CAMTA mission to Quito, Ecuador is going into active preparation mode!

The team members for each of our two mission weeks have been announced. Those team members will be planning their fundraising. Regular meetings will start in early October but work bees are already being planned.

Today Eileen and Heather met in the Guilfoyle/Lilley kitchen to list the pediatric instruments that require replacement or acquisition.

Here's Eileen on the left whilst Heather records what's needed for the pediatric instrument sets. There is a sale on instruments right now!

CAMTA acquired instruments over six years ago and a few of them require replacement.

In other news --- Heather Perl and Glenn Day visited the former Capital Health surplus warehouse (now Alberta Health Services) and examined surplus operating room equipment for shipment by container to the Tierra Nueva's new hospital, Canto a la Vida. CAMTA will use casino revenue to pay for the shipment of hospital beds, operating room tables, anesthesia machines and other gear help outfit the new hospital. The shipment is being made through the IMED division of the Canadian Food for the Hungry. They are experts at overseas shipment of containers.

We are also in the process of developing a new website. We have had discussions with one vendor and now a committee of members is reviewing our website needs. This also will be funded from our casino revenue.

Alberta charities are very lucky in that they are able to work at a casino every two years.

Casinos in Alberta are tightly regulated and are for the benefit of charitable organizations.

Thanks and watch for more soon!

John

EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT

On Wednesday there were two teaching sessions for the nurses of the Tierra Nueva. Spreading knowledge is always a desirable thing! At 1115 the nurses spoke and demonstrated care of the ortopedic total hip patient. At about 1145h the physiotherapists demonstrated how patients can be taught how to arise from bed and use their crutches (muletas) correctly.

Here are the Tierra Nueva staff watching attentively (above) while below Adela translates whilst Clara, Physiotherapist demonstrates. That´s Deb on the right.

Note the belt. Safety in learning ambulation after surgery requires a belt on the patient in case they lose control and start to fall. The nurse in white is a Tierra Nueva staff member and she is the ¨patient" for the demonstration.


Meanwhile in the operating room Rebecca and Glenn initiate an intravenous on a preoperative total hip arthroplasty patient. Lucida is a young patient. She has dysplastic hips from childhood and now has early and painful osteoarthritis.

This tyke is 11 and he has cerebral palsy. We lengthened his tendons and gave him cylinder casts. There are so many kids with tight tendons needing casts this year that we are now running short on plaster.



Meet Dr. Saifee Rashiq on the right. "El profesor" is participating for the third year in CAMTA.

Do you remember Julianna? Here she is about to use her crutches. But you can tell she is very worried about it. Mom is smiling but daughter isn´t so sure! We let her have lunch and then later she ambulated just fine and headed off home. Kids learn fast!

On the way home from the bus I captured some street scenes. Here´s a street vendor.

The beautiful basilica is prominent on the route as we drive to and from the hospital.

Need a snack of maize enroute home?

Or maybe your shoes shined?

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It´s not all about surgery! There´s care on the ward too!

The ward delivers the superb care that gets the patients back on their feet and gives them the skills they need with their crutches to return safely home. Here´s Sarah Southon, Nurse Practioner in Pediatric Orthopedics, Family Doc Doris Kent with Marta at the nursing desk. Marta is a long time Tierra Nueva staff nurse who has worked with us for years. I´m sorry I don´t know the name of the other Tierra Nueva nurse. This year we also have some Tierra Nueva nursing students working on the floor.

Graduate Nurse Robyn Goplen is with Yolanda who had her total hip this very day! Watch for video to be posted of her taking her first steps with her new hip!

Linda Ushkowski, Adela Sandigo RN´s both with Dr. Doris Kent in the charting-medication-storage room.

Julianna´s clubfoot needed a little more work

Julianna is 10. She had her clubfoot operated on when she was about 2. But there is some residual inturning of her right foot. Julianna came with her older sister who is 26. The parents are working in a small town and they sent the kids to Quito to live with their grandparents. In Quito they should get better schooling.

Julianna hopes to wear normal shoes and to play some sports. She hopes to run better.

That´s Fern Cannon on the left and Glenn Day on the right.

Below, Fern stays with Julianna for her anesthetic induction by Teresa Eliasson in the background.

Scott Wiens, R4 Orthopedic Resident, Glenn Day RRT, Cori Kalven B.Sc.N. and Eileen Guilfoyle RN were part of Julianna´s surgical team.

Here´s the surgery underway.


Here´s Julianna´s x'ray.



And finally we have Julianna in recovery room with Bev Runka RN and Student Nurse Rebecca Latimer.

Miguel gets his tendons lengthened!

Miguel has cerebral palsy. Here´s Miguel with his grandmother and aunt, Maria. He was abandoned by his mother and now he lives with his sibs, aunt and their grandmother. The only income is from Maria´s husband´s work as a chauffeur of a bus. Miguel smiles lots and he loved the balloon animals that Anesthesia Tech Glenn Day made for him. Miguel needs flat feet if he´s to walk better and that´s what we did for him today.

Here Fern Cannon helps Miguel onto the operating room table. Fern has been part of CAMTA as a translator since our inception and worked with some of us in Cuenca before CAMTA was formed. She´s an Ecuadorean and now lives with her husband and three girls (9, 7, 5) in Texas.

Here´s the surgical team for Miguel. It´s the end of surgery and he´s got some nice cylinder casts! That´s Robyn Goplen, Surgeon Marc Moreau, Anesthesiologist Teresa Eliasson, Surgeon John McIvor and medical student, Mike Metcalfe.



And finally here is a smiling Miguel on the ward after surgery!

Clinic Day for Team Two - Sunday March 1st

The bus transported Team Two to the hospital at 0800h on Sunday. Some Team One members came in too since there were patients to care for on the ward. And it´s important to brief everyone about the events of the week and where the medication and the equipment is located. Here´s a little girl with the Canadian flag:

Here Robyn Goplen, Graduate Nurse assesses a young woman who needs a total hip arthroplasty. Sonya has had dysplastic hips since childhood. She walks with a terrible limp and has a hard time sleeping. We only had about three surgical slots left after the first clinic. There were 60 patients to see and the majority were follow-up patient exams. It was great to see last year´s patients. There were lots of hugs and kisses.

These two tykes received hip surgery last year. Aren´t they cute!


Here´s their extended family. Mom, Dad, sister and grandpa.



Here´s another family. Everybody wears their Sunday best to the clinic!



There was time for a picture of some of the 40 team two members in scrubs. From left to right is Barb, Marc, Cori, Pauline (star of the CBC 2006 documentary) Ron, Heather, Paul and Robin.

Pedipod Marc Moreau watches the gait of a child with cerebral palsy. We´ll help him to walk a little better with tenotomies to let his feet be flat on the floor!

Here´s Dorothy, Bev and Rebecca with Omar. He´s enjoying all the attention!

Dan Ducholke is fixing the label printer. Everybody loves the labels that our database, designed by Mark Fedorak, produces. Dan is a mechanical engineer who is our data man for week two.

If you think we are doing good work in Ecuador then join our FACEBOOK group at www. facebook.com. Search for the group called ECUADOR 2009.

Team One hands off care to Team Two

On Friday evening, Team Two arrived after their long trip from Edmonton, Bonnyville, Kelowna, Vancouver and Texas. On Saturday evening everybody enjoyed dinner together and we continued the tradition of a picture of each team. About 12 of our members from both teams enjoyed a game of soccer. For Ecuadoreans (and most of the world) this is known as FOOTBALL. FOOTBALL is a national passion in Ecuador and six games were played in Quito on Saturday. Each and every CAMTA member except Sam Stetsko arrived at the dinner in football shirts. Sam couldn´t because there wasn´t one large enough for this former football player.

Team One of CAMTA Mission 2009

Team Two of CAMTA Mission 2009

Find your friends and relatives! They are all there!

Our patients are recovering

Here´s Eileen, Jose and his Mom just before Jose entered the operating room for his surgery. Jose was another of the many many children we have seen this year with dysplastic hips! These kids walk with a limp and then grow up to have very very early osteoarthritis which when it becomes severe limits their ability to work and feed their families.

Dr. Orlando scrubbed in with Ed Masson and Greg O´Connor again. Earlier he scrubbed in on Pablo´s hip surgery and Pablo translated for him while Pablo himself had surgery! Amazing!

Jenna Coulombe has just finished her Human Ecology degree and applied to come as a lay student with CAMTA, two years ago. Here she is learning about what anesthesiology might mean as a career. This type of exposure is done only under the direct and continuous control of anesthesiologist Dr. Andriy Rodyniuk.



Meanwhile in recovery room Charlette Opper and Erin Nikolic care for a little tyke after surgery.



Consuelo has had an amazing experience this week. She volunteered as a translator. Consuelo moved from Colombia to Edmonton many years ago and raised her children single handedly. She has never had an experience with such emotional power as her experience this week. She is a CAMTA translator. She says she will participate as a translator for as many years as she can. Consuelo has been in tears. She is a very compassionate woman.

The child Consuelo is with has cerebral palsy. He´s 13 years old. When parents have such a kid in Ecuador there isn´t much support like at home in Edmonton. This little guy has some contractures in his tendons and a seizure disorder. His mental ability is about age 2. He needed tendon releases so that his parents can get him up in a chair or help him to stand.

Jenna Coulombe carried this tiny little 13 year old into the operating room for his surgery.

Meanwhile next door in the adult theatre, medical student Sheena Sikora is pictured here making the incision for a hip arthroplasty. She is under the direction of Drs. Greg O´Connor and Ed Masson. Sheena is thinking of orthopedic surgery or plastics as a career. We want her in orthopedics!

On the right is RN Debbie Jaraway. She´s a pediatric OR nurse but for fun she did an adult hip today.

In the pediatric room with the Pedro - the boy with CP asleep, Darcie scrubbed in. Eileen taught her about sterile surgical technique on Wednesday. Now was her turn to scrub and observe.

Then the surgery progressed back in the adult room. Loreno is getting her femoral prosthesis implanted here.

Pedro now has his tendons released and two cylinder casts applied. He´ll keep these casts for six weeks. Left to right we have Dr. Andriy Rodyniuk, RN Eileen Guilfoyle, Dr. Marc Moreau, Ms. Darcie Stein and Dr. Jay Jarvis. Jay is from Ottawa. Everyone else is from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.