CAMTA gets TV coverage

Hi All,

Marc, Eileen and I were interviewed yesterday by Sue Ling Goh of Global Television here in Edmonton.  The clip was quite well done -- we really think that Sue Ling made an extra effort to give a good perspective on our organisation.  If you click on this text you'll get to watch after the commercial.

Thanks.

John

News from Pablo!

Hi CAMTA friends.

I’m Pablo Montahuano and want to show you a picture from me and my family after six weeks from my hip surgery. Everything is going good, you can see that I’m standing without muletas (crutches) yes, yes I begin to walk without them only with the help from a cane. This picture was taken on mach 22 when we went for lunch to my sister’s house. Last week we celebrate the Holy Week (Easter Week) with processions and religious ceremonies and with the traditional soup called Fanesca. This soup of incomparable flavor is made with no less than a dozen of the grains and legumes that our generous Andean land proffers to us. To this heady mix is added fish (remember that we're in the time of abstinence from meat), flour dumplings and boiled egg, served alongside an Andean take on mashed potato and some pieces of cheese, called Molo. It’s one of the most filling soups you could ever encounter. Definitely a mortal sin to be relished at Easter! (The Fanesca soup from this photo is made by my mother.)

After the OR: Recovery on the Ward!

Today you'll see the ward in action. CAMTA nurses and the Tierra Nueva nurses working literally arm in arm (a brazo a brazo)

Here's Janet, the physio again with Kathleen Shearer. This little guy had a epiphysiodesis. If you want to know what is look it up. He had an infection in one knee and that changed the rate of growth. Look at that nice red cast -- courtesy of 3M.

Here's Darlene Hammell and Adela Sandigo. Adela is an RN and Spanish is her first language. That's so very handy since everybody can come running to Adela and get a first hand answer. Fern Cannon is from Cuenca but lives with her three children and husband in Katy, Texas. Fern has been a participant in our missions since 2002.

That's Marta in the middle between Adela and Deb Chalupa. Deb is a pro at orthopedic nursing since she is in charge of the orthopedic ward at the Misericordia Hospital. Martha is a long time nurse at the Tierra Nueva. She knows all the ins and outs of requisitions and lab tests.

Now look closely here. This young woman is ambulating on the stairs. Mom's at the bottom and watching Janet and Craig help her learn how to handle stairs with muleta's. That's crutches in Spanish.

But now a little surgery. Here's a club foot that was partially treated. This young girl is walking on the side of her foot. There was no possibility of a functional foot.

Notice on the right x-ray how the foot is turned inwards.

The only possibility to help this young woman was to fuse the ankle. Here's the final result with the pins to stabilize the joint while the bones fuse together.


Isn't this a beautiful shot of a happy family! That's student nurse Adrienne Robson kneeling and Clinical Nurse Educator Christina Hanna on the right. Everybody is just glowing!

Dr. Darlene Hammell examines Rodrigo. He's one of three patients this week who had bilateral hip replacements. The down side to a bilateral is higher blood loss. But they don't have to wait a year to get the second hip replaced.

This handicapped teenager is very happy but quite handicapped from her CP. She's quite smar upstairs and gave a number of us a drawing of mountains or houses done on her notepad. She was practicing her letters in a scribbler. Angela had tendon releases on both legs to improve her spasticity.

I had to include this shot because you can see just how bad this man's painful limp from his hip arthritis is. Note how he's tipped to one side as he is assisted by Eve Moreau and Heather Perl down the hall to the quirofanos. That's operating room in Spanish.

Here's another Pablo all tucked in and with sedation on board during his spinal anesthetic. I included this picture to show his sun-creased face from decade working in his field's to grow a crop on 5 acres to feed his family and sell for some cash.

We have one more day to operate! And then there is the big packing bee late on Friday to prepare some items for storage at the Tierra Nueva and others (such as the instruments) for return to Edmonton in the hockey bags. And we will say some sad goodbyes to our surgical nurses from the Tierra Nueva. The goodbyes for the nurses on the ward will be on the weekend because we'll still have patients in the hospital recovering from their late week surgery.

Thanks!

Today is a big packing day!

Sort! Wrap! Sterilize! Pack!



Down at the warehouse at 1000h today there will be a busy hive of activity!

Operating room nurses from pediatrics and from adults will be organizing and sorting supplies. Some are recently procured from what's been discarded at the hospitals but can't be reused. Other materials have previously been wrapped by the nurses and sterilized for our surgical caseload in Ecuador. There are surgical sponges, drapes to cover the patients during surgery and various single use instruments and staplers.

We have to take down two hockey bags per mission volunteer participant. Each bag is stuffed with all of things we need to deliver hospital care in Quito at the Tierra Nueva hospital. There are also medications for anesthesia and medications for the ward. There are dressings and IV giving sets. There are blood pressure cuffs and even a device called a Hemacue which provides "point of care" laboratory results. We take many crutches which have been discarded by our patients.

I would estimate that there are probably 10 hours of preparation for each hour of surgery. I don't think that's an exaggeration!

We are very very lucky to have a donated warehouse. It is shared with a car racing club. They use the facility for meetings and some storage. We have secured the back half of the facility with shelves for the surgical supplies and we use the front meeting hall for the preparation, sorting and wrapping.

Rotary and Lions service clubs support us in our work. And there are many numerous smaller donations made by individuals and businesses. The budget for a two week surgical mission is over $200,000. Each individual is responsible to raise the $2,000 cost of their travel, accomodation and meals. But the cost of a mission is far more than the cost of looking after our professional volunteers. We must buy surgical prostheses and surgical supplies and these are expensive. A hip prosthesis costs about $2,000 and we insert 40 of them each year!

If you think you can help us out then go to http://www.camta.com/ and click on the "Donate" link. We have only 13 weeks left until departure for Ecuador.

Please add your comments!
Thanks.
John Lilley