CAMTA purchases medical equipment to enhance safety and care!

At an executive meeting on November 30th, the CAMTA executive agreed to proceed with the purchase of some new equipment items to support our 10th Anniversary Mission to the Tierra Nueva Foundation's Hospital Un Canto a la Vida in Quito, Ecuador.

The equipment will enhance safety for our patients and increase CAMTA's ability to deliver surgical care in a timely manner to our Ecuadorean patients.

Pictured below is a Glidescope device which represents the "state of the art" in anesthesia management of airways.  The video laryngoscope comes with the necessary equipment to manage pediatric and adult airways.

The purchase of the video laryngoscope offers an opportunity as well to teach a modern technique to the local anesthesiologists at the Hospital Un Canto a la Vida who care for the poor patients of South Quito.  We are hopeful that they will be able to make use of this "state of the art" device on their patients during the 50 weeks that CAMTA is not "on the ground" in Quito. 

We are also purchasing several new orthopedic instruments for the pediatric surgical program of CAMTA.  Each year we accumulate a few more instruments and these are typically stored in Ecuador unless repairs or sharpening are required.  Pictured below are some typical orthopedic instruments.

These purchases are made possible by the generous support of many individual, service club and corporate gifts.  Without the support of over 1000 donors each year, the mission wouldn't happen!  I would like to thank our donors for their ongoing generosity!

Thanks.

John

Pablo's wife Mikky sends a letter to CAMTA!

I am the wife of Pablo Montahuano Sosa and desire to share with you my gratefulness to all the team members of CAMTA MISSION 2008.

For Pablo, our daughter Emilia and for me, it was an enriching experience because we learned to value the great social work of this team who came to our country Ecuador to help the people of limited resources that suffer from a physical problem that does not allow them a normal life.

I always saw the problem of my husband Pablo as something very hard to solve since we are in a difficult economical situation right now but thanks to God the opportunity appeared: this team of doctors allowed him to have surgery.

I watched closely the process of preparation and also the care given after the surgery and the great love that all the team members put into their work. It is really admirable!

All this teaches to us to value what we have, to thank God for allowing us to have this type of aid and also to be thankful for the care and concern of all the personnel of CAMTA.

How can one not be thankful to Rachel, Pablo’s physiotherapist for her affection, dedication, professionalism and happiness to help the patients after the surgery. Her laughter filled us with positivism at those moments of stress, and helped us forget our preoccupations. Rachel, thanks, do not change!

To Carol Maynard who was always concerned that all was well taken care of and to all the doctors for their professionalism and dedication: God bless them and may He allow them to continue helping all the people who need aid.

Thanks also to all the people who with their donations make this noble mission possible. Pablo and I can feel calm and satisfaction since, thanks to you, many people will return to a normal life.

Thanks to CAMTA and the donors for making surgery possible on my husband Pablo, and thanks for giving us a lesson of humility, effortlessness and love to our brothers.

Thanks to all the team of CAMTA MISSION 2008. I wish you much luck and keep up this noble work!

With deep gratefulness, Mikky

That's Mikky behind Pablo in this photo. Al Tardif is on the left and Pablo's mother on the right.

Analyzing the preoperative clinic flow

Hi Everyone,
I thought you might like some insight into how CAMTA staff see our patients before the surgery begins each year.
Last night several of us met at the Moreau residence and thanks to the skills of one CAMTA volunteer, Mark Fedorak who is an engineer, we outlined the flow of patients in our clinic. Why you might ask would we try to analyze this?
Each year the clinic has been very busy and very long. There is a constant flow of patients and their family members here and there throughout the large physio centre that the Tierra Nueva lends us on the first Sunday of our project. By the end of the 14hour day we have seen about 100 patients and filled the operating room schedule for two weeks with some open spots for patients who show up later.
But it is really organized confusion! We've adjusted the clinic before and each year it is a little bit smoother and better organized. But we are trying to improve it more! That would be more satisfying for the patients.
We have many small children and some frail elderly. Thus if we can improve the process we can get them out of the clinic sooner. They would rather wait for the day of their surgery at home or with a relative!
Mark Fedorak recorded our description of the patient flow. The people present last night are all CAMTA veterans and they each described their role and the changes they thought could help. Mark also recorded the roles of each clinic staff member. The translator brings the patient to the surgeon and acts as the "patient advocate". And the surgeon does the obvious thing -- takes a history and physical from the surgical perspective and examines the xrays. If the patient needs surgery then the next "station" in the clinic has to be one of nursing, family doctor, anesthesiologist and/or physiotherapist. Sometimes additional tests are needed and for those the patient needs to see a Tierra Nueva nurse or social worker. Every surgical patient needs instructions about when to stop drinking and eating before their surgery. They need their questions answered.
The very first and the very last clinic "stations" are the data entry stops. At the first station we'll enter the patient in the database and print identifying labels for the chart. At the last visit to the data entry personnel we take a photograph and ensure the patient has been through all the steps.
The Tierra Nueva social worker interviews each patient who has surgery planned before they leave the hospital. That ensures all is clear in the patient mind.
Eve Moreau lives in Quito and she has been a translator for us each year. She is the provisional "clinic organizer" since there is a lot of preparatory work in advance of the clinic. She prints and assembles the charts and prepares the signage for the clinic. Eve needs her chance for input into the clinic process. And likewise Darlene Hammell and Doris Kent, our two veteran family doctors need their input too.
All for now and thanks for reading! Please post some comments.
John

Getting ready for Mission 2008 to Quito, Ecuador

Hi Everyone,
It's only 13 weeks until our group departs for Ecuador.
On February 8th the first half of 50 doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, students and lay people will leave Edmonton, Alberta and head for the Tierra Nueva Hospital in Quito Sur, Ecuador.

The mission is an annual event. The Canadian Association of Medical Teams Abroad or CAMTA for short is the charity. Check out www.camta.com!!!!

CAMTA was formed in 2001. Until last year we have done one week of surgery each year. It takes about 10 days to conduct that surgery because first after traveling to Ecuador we have to set up the operating rooms; then screen the patients; and then create the operating room slates.

One week has always meant two theatres of surgery: one for pediatrics and one for adult orthopedics.

There seem to be a lot of club feet and dyspasia of the hip in children in Ecuador. And if the dysplastic hips are corrected in childhood then these kids get early osteoarthritis of the hip.

Osteoarthritis means PAIN and REDUCED FUNCTION!!! In Ecuador that means that the person can't work and therefore can't help his family put food on the table.

This last spring we doubled our mission to two weeks of surgery. Thus we could help about 28 kids and about 40 adults get better. And it was so successful that we are going to do it again.
But planning a mission with 80 staff is a lot of work. Thus with 13 weeks left until departure we have lots of work to do. I'm going to keep you up to date on preparations with this blog.

If you look at the website there are pictures of our mission. www.camta.com

Thanks everybody!!!