By Leila Hawken | Executive Assistant
Pushing through unanticipated events including a power failure, air conditioning shortage, and a late shipment of one type of essential medicine, our volunteer international team, during their one-week stay last week, completed 9 operations on infants and children in need of heart surgery. The surgeries were performed at our new Pediatric Heart Center of Nicaragua, located in Managua. The international team was headed by renowned pediatric heart surgeon, Dominique Metras, MD, of Marseille, France. Team members came from Marseille and Bordeaux, France; Madrid, Spain; and Ramallah, Palestine. Despite the difficulties, all of the operations were successful. The team is grateful to the technical crew serving the hospital for their ingenuity in helping to find solutions to the technical difficulties as they arose.
One of the ablest chroniclers of the week in photographs was Hasan Amar, MD, the anesthesiologist from Palestine. In between operations, he snapped some great photographs, some of which are included with this report. Describing the first patient seen on Monday (Jennifer, 13 years of age), he wrote, "a cute girl suffering congenital aortic stenosis underwent a successful operation by the international team."
The photographs speak volumes. One touching snapshot of Dr. Metras greeting little Lesyenia (11 months), in advance of her operation during which her life would be in his capable hands is included with this report. The operation went well and her life is immeasurably changed now that she is free of the heart ailment that was holding her hostage. Her childhood is now ahead of her--she will live the life of a healthy little girl.
Philippe Lerch, our Nicaragua Program Director, wrote in a preliminary report that the air conditioning will be fixed in January, in time for another surgical mission team's arrival from Belgium. He said that the medical supplies were in place for the mission in sufficient supply that the team was able to function well without the late medication.
Our GlobalGiving friends who direct donatiions our way by using their company's gift cards or by direct donation through our GlobalGiving project page are to be thanked for this success. If you are reading this report, you are an integral part of Surgeons of Hope. Please consider an end-of-the-year gift to us. We are a small organization, so we put your dollars right to work for the good of the kids who are waiting for our help. Please give.
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