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

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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