
Kennet and his Mother with Surgical Team Members
As the year draws to a close, I would like to summarize our accomplishments in this project during 2016. With our Guatemalan sister organization, Asociacion Companero para Cirugia (ACPC), we supported 18 surgical teams with patients and for 5 of these teams we also provided the in-country logistics support. Altogether, 680 patients received surgical care and more than 6,000 received medical attention.
I would like to use the experience of several patients to describe how we provide the surgical care. In October, we scheduled patients with the Hernia Society which would be volunteering in Antigua that month and this team provided 65 of our patients with surgical care. One of these patients was Kennet who was born with an inguinal hernia in La Tinta, Alta Verapaz. His mother and his father had travelled every week to a local hospital to get the much needed surgery, but the hospital didn’t have medical supplies. His mother, Otilia, was afraid of having more children, thinking that they would also be born with a hernia and the family would not be able to do anything about it.
Fortunately, Kennet and his family were told about our medical mission to a nearby community and we were able to schedule him with the Hernia Society team. Kennet was very lovely and many volunteers fell in love with him and with his smile. After the surgery, Kennet’s mother said she was “very thankful to all volunteers and encouraged them to keep coming to Guatemala”.
In addition to those patients receiving surgery, another seven had to return home because their major incisional hernias required more advanced planning by a team. Since we have the capability to follow up on all our patients, ACPC was able to reschedule five of the patients with incisional hernias with the Canadian Health for Humanity team that came for three weeks in November. Alicia Risso was one of these incisional hernia patients and she said after her surgery: “I want to thank Partner for Surgery and ACPC for not giving up on us and for finding the support we needed. We felt sad when we were told in October that we would not get our surgeries, but ACPC found another team for us. Thanks to the teams and to the people who made this possible”.
We are making a renewed effort to encourage non-medical volunteers to join us on a medical mission in Guatemala and also visit some of the patients in their rural homes. If you know of anyone who might have an interest in learning more, please contact me at 703 893-4335.
From all of us in Partner for Surgery and ACPC, we thank you for your support of our project Medical Care for 2,000 Rural Guatemalan Families (18508).
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