By Leila Hawken | GlobalGiving Coordinator
The years of preparation for continued advanced training within the children’s hospitals in the countries the Surgeons of Hope program is serving are step by step meeting intended goals. This progress is key to the Surgeons of Hope vision of pediatric cardiac care in Latin America.
Since the last regular surgical report that we provided to our loyal GlobalGiving donors in December, the children who received life-altering heart operations have returned for check-ups and we are pleased to share that they are doing well. They are getting measurably stronger and enjoying more usual childhood activities.
Recent weeks have seen Surgeons of Hope doctors and administrators charting the surgical training missions, teams that will travel to points within Latin America. Due to the success of past missions, our smaller mission teams can provide the necessary complex surgeries, finding surgical support within the hospitals they are visiting. The intensive training sessions incorporated into earlier missions are enabling this move to small, specialized teams in addition to traditional larger missions (8-12 people).
Surgeons of Hope is now planning to provide Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) training in Mexico City at Hospital Infantil de Mexico Federico Gomez, funding a team from Bogota, Colombia. ECMO is an essential component during pediatric cardiac surgery, rerouting the blood into a machine for reoxygenation. In short, ECMO temporarily does the work of the little patient’s heart and lungs during surgery.
In coming weeks, a new system of training modules will be presented to the children’s hospital in Paraguay, Hospital Pediatrico Ninos de Acosta Nu, by a team from Argentina adding the advantage of extended training over a longer period.
To continue amazing progress in Paraguay, we need to provide supplies in the form of the usual small but essential items such as surgical masks. Dr. Chantal Real, Surgeons of Hope’s local representative, has recently notified us of the critical need for devices to deliver intravenous medicines. As you can imagine, supplies dwindle rapidly.
This is where you come in. As a GlobalGiving friend, will you continue to help us? Your GlobalGiving donation will provide progress where it is most needed. This is how the world’s child mortality rate comes down, a case at a time, as your donation joins with our committed GlobalGiving community to make it happen.
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