ReSurge International Blog

Delmira: Fifteen Years Later

After we treat a patient and our work is done, we watch them walk away back into their lives. As we watch, we hold a silent wish in our hearts that with the care we provided they will have an opportunity to improve their lives despite the difficulties they might still face.

That’s why it’s a joy for all of us at ReSurge to hear from a former patient, especially after 15 years. A few months ago we wrote a blog post about one of our former patients, Delmira, who we were working to get in touch with. 

Delmira was only eight when she was badly burned by the explosion of a kerosene lantern.  She had been doing her homework by its light in the wooden hut where her family lived.  She had undergone 14 surgeries in Ecuador, including four by ReSurge, before Soozee (a ReSurge volunteer), with ReSurge's help, brought Delmira to the U.S. for care.  

Soozee recently visited Delmira in Ecuador (pictured below with her new baby girl) who is now married and has two children. Delmira sent us the following note back: 

My childhood was very sad after the accident. I felt rejected by my classmates. With time, things changed. With God’s help ReSurge arrived in Portoviejo with Dr. Jorge Palacios. It was there I met Soozee who immediately gave me strength and love. She gave me advice like a mother would and helped me undergo all the medical evaluations needed so that I could receive surgery in the various parts of my body affected by the accident. Thanks to God and the hands of the doctors my life continued to change. Two years later, ReSurge took me to California so that I could get a prosthetic eye. Thanks to God, the amazing doctors and ReSurge, the surgery was successful. Today, I am accepted by society, I got engaged and I have two beautiful daughters.

I’m very thankful to ReSuge and Soozee for caring for me. Please say hello to all of ReSurge’s medical volunteers and staff. I hope they continue to provide surgeries to those in need so they can live with a happy smile. 

 

Ayush

Kathmandu, Nepal - Nina Vaswani and Katherine Hobbs, ReSurge volunteers.

Eight-year-old Ayush is enjoying his first speech camp. He is doing very well and told us his favorite part of the camp is the nice doctors and therapists he gets to work with everyday. Ayush is from Pokhara, where the camp is being held, and is here with with his mother. He is currently in the fourth grade at an English boarding school. Ayush was born with a small cleft lip and received the necessary reconstructive surgery when he was about two years old--the ideal age for a child to receive cleft surgery. When surgery is performed between 12 and 18 months of age, it reduces the risk of speech impediments developing. Due to the timing of his surgery, Ayush has faced nearly no challenges with his speech; he speaks confidently and eloquently in both English and Nepalese! Ayush wants to become a doctor, which to us is a clear testament to the loving care he has received from ReSurge doctors and the speech camp program. We have no doubt that in the future he will be sporting a white coat and a stethoscope.

 

Personal Journeys: In Nepal, Friends Become Fundraisers

Last month, we received an inspiring email from a man named Eric Chang. He and his close friends John Lee and Sanjeeb Shrestha had been in Nepal to bury their friend Neil’s ashes at the Buddha’s birthplace in Lumbini.  They stopped in Pokhara six days into their journey, and went to a local laundry service to get their clothes cleaned. While they were waiting for their clothes to dry, they struck up a conversation with the owner. Eric wrote about what happened next:

“Mr. Rana talked about his village, telling us it took a day just to get up the mountain. I asked him if the inquisitive, shy girl sitting next to the window was his daughter and he said, "yes", but that something was "wrong with her." I pretended I hadn't noticed, but the deformation of her face was obvious from the moment I walked in the store. He explained to us that Rabina, his twelve-year-old daughter, was born with a cleft lip and palate. He told us she couldn't go to school because she was bullied and teased too much by the other children. I felt his anguish and pain as he explained that his only child had already had a few surgeries, and needed more, but they were "too, too expensive." Needless to say, Nepal is a very poor country. Statistics on UNICEF's website say that between 2000 and 2009, 55% of the population lived under the international poverty line of $1.25 per day and yet, we lived the high life, enjoying great meals at nice restaurants throughout Nepal. I asked him how much it would cost to continue getting the care she needed. He slowly calculated the cost in his head and said four thousand dollars. That didn't strike me as a lot of money, and instantly, an idea was born.”

Thirteen-year-old Rabina

Eric and his friends created a website and began fundraising for Rabina in their friend Neil’s honor. They wanted to raise money for Rabina’s family, to cover the costs of her surgery and orthodontics. In the meantime, Sanjeeb began making arrangements with a hospital in Kathmandu, and that is how he came into contact with Dr. Shankar Rai, our surgical outreach program director.  Dr. Rai and his team travel all over Nepal to increase access to care in the most remote and underserved regions. They can provide free surgery for Rabina through our surgical outreach program, but Rabina will also need help with orthodontic post-operative care. Dr. Rai then involved Dr. Nita Hoskins, one of our volunteer orthodontists who spends several months a year in Nepal helping to develop a comprehensive dental and orthodontic rural outreach program. The postgraduate orthodontics program in Kathmandu took Rabina’s dental records, x-rays and clinical photos at no charge, so that they could be posted to our private web-based discussion board called ReSurge Grand Rounds. This allows doctors from all over the world to review the case and provide feedback on possible treatment plans. Most recently, our Nepalese doctors were able to evaluate Rabina during a rural outreach trip in May and are planning to begin treatment shortly.

As Eric, John and Sanjeeb began learning more about the various programs we have in Nepal and other countries, they became very enthusiastic and wanted to raise even more money to continue helping patients like Rabina. We are very grateful for our new donors and their obvious dedication to helping others.  

Learning about Speech Camps in Pokhara

Kathmandu, Nepal - Nina Vaswani and Katherine Hobbs, ReSurge volunteers.

Today was our first day at the speech camp in Pokhara. It was a long and tiring day, but also a lot of fun.

Yesterday, we traveled to Pokhara to visit the speech camp here. We came by car and the drive was gorgeous. Once we got out of Kathmandu we were met by lush valleys, beautiful green hills and breathtaking views. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful place could exist so close to the smoggy, overcrowded streets of Kathmandu.

We arrived in Pokhara in the evening and met all of the speech camp’s staff, who had come in from all over the country by bus, car and plane. The team consists of nurses, speech pathologists, surgeons, a dental consultant and program directors. After the camp’s opening ceremony, everyone started their work with the kids. While the nurses were assessing the camp’s participants and the dental surgeon was doing consultations, we played with the kids waiting for their turn. We quickly went through all of our planned activities, and then had to come up with new ways to entertain all the energetic kids.  

The speech camp program is a really interesting idea and very well run. I had always assumed that after surgery the patient would be more or less fine and the long-term implications of being born with a cleft lip or palate had never occurred to me. I learned this week that a cleft can greatly affect speech, nutrition and dental hygiene, creating a whole host of problems beyond the cleft itself. Speech camps, like this one, were founded by Dr. Rai and run throughout the country. With support from ReSurge, these camps offer patients free post-surgical comprehensive treatment. Anywhere from 40-60 children are able to attend each camp with one parent and stay at a dorm-like facility for about a week. While there, they receive dental care, speech therapy, counseling and may even undergo another surgery at a local hospital to correct a previous operation. The parents receive instructions on how to help their child's speech develop once they leave the camp and also take part in counseling. The services offered are wonderful and it's incredible to see Dr. Rai and his team continue to check on and care for patients years after their surgeries. The care and dedication they give to each and every patient is inspiring and I look forward to going back to camp tomorrow to see more of their work.

Ritik

Kathmandu, Nepal - Nina Vaswani and Katherine Hobbs, ReSurge volunteers.

Yesterday, six-year-old Ritik had cleft palate and lip surgery. She lives in the village of Kalinbur and came to Kathmandu after being pre-screened by Dr. Rai’s team in her village. Her father works in Kathmandu as a driver and her mother passed away last year, so her grandfather had to bring Ritik and two of her siblings to the clinic. It took them four hours and 800 rupees to make the more than 100 kilometer trek by bus from Kalinbur to Kathmandu. Coming to the city for her surgery also gave Ritik the opportunity to meet with a doctor about an eye condition that she was unable to receive treatment for at home.

Ritik started school this year and her family is hopeful that the surgery will allow her to grow and develop without being held back by her cleft.

Taking Inventory

Kathmandu, Nepal - Nina Vaswani and Katherine Hobbs, ReSurge volunteers.

Today we worked with Dr. Rai’s staff to clean out a storage room filled with donated medical supplies. These supplies were sent here six months ago to be used in the new hospital, but with the hospital’s opening having been postponed the supplies have sat in a dusty storage room, waiting to be put to use. The storage room was piled high with boxes and bags and today was the day Dr. Rai wanted to clean and inventory everything!

Over the course of the day, Katherine and I were both amazed by Dr. Rai’s team. They are trained medical professionals, yet here they were sweeping the floors and counting bandages. Some people had no idea how they would be spending their day when they arrived for work that morning, but everyone there had a smile on his or her face. I particularly enjoyed our assembly lines, where we’d throw boxes or bags to each other down a long line to make or move a pile. Altogether, it ended up being a surprisingly fun day.

During our drive back from the storage site, we saw countless breathtaking views of the valley and felt compelled to stop to take a picture. The sight was gorgeous and the mountains frame the colorful buildings and terraced fields to create scenes that can only be described as beautiful.

Tonight, after a long day’s work, we treated ourselves to pizza! We have enjoyed our first week of work here and are looking forward to the adventures that are still to come.

ReSurge Documentary Producer's New Film in the News

More than 10 years ago, two-time Emmy Award nominated director Isaac Solotaroff produced a film about ReSurge titled “Reasons for Hope.” In it, he documented ReSurge’s empowerment model and surgical outreach programs. The film highlights the work of Dr. Shankar Man Rai—one of ReSurge’s surgical outreach partners in Nepal. Solotaroff’s film remains a wonderful contribution to our organization and a valuable tool in showcasing the impact of our work.

Today, Solotaroff is making news for a new documentary he helped produce, Ballplayer:Pelotero, in which the lives of  two young Dominican baseball players are followed as they navigate the various hurdles associated with getting recruited by Major League Baseball.

To learn more about Ballplayer: Pelotero, click here.

To watch Reasons for Hope, simply visit our YouTube page.

What Causes Burn Injuries?

Since 2004, we’ve treated thousands of burn patients at our surgical outreach program sites. At ReSurge, we understand that when a patient arrives at our door for treatment, two things have already happened: 1) the burn was not prevented, and 2) the burn did not receive the initial adequate care it needed. These are both things we are working to address through our recent partnership with International Medical Corps.

In an effort to better understand the causes behind theses devastating burn injuries and more importantly, how to help prevent them, we’ve analyzed the information we have on the cases we treat. Overwhelmingly, more than two-thirds of injuries are caused by open cooking and field fires.

See the pie chart above for a full breakdown of the causes behind the burns we treat at our surgical outreach program sites.

To learn more about burn injuries, visit our burn webpage today.

 

First Days in Kathmandu

Pictured: Susan Vaswani, Nina Vaswani and Katherine Hobbs. 

Kathmandu, Nepal - Nina Vaswani and Katherine Hobbs, ReSurge volunteers.

We arrived in Kathmandu around noon on Monday July 9. We were picked up and warmly welcomed by two members of the Kathmandu Model Hospital plastics team who gave us beautiful flower necklaces upon our arrival.

The next morning we eagerly left for our first visit to the hospital. We entered a small plastic surgery office, located on the peripheral of the main hospital, the largest in Kathmandu. We took in the room around us, peering at before and after pictures of cleft lip, cleft palate, and burn contracture patients, hand-drawn charts comparing the nature of the cases sponsored by the Resurge surgical outreach program and the whiteboard listing the surgeries for the day. It is an understatement to say that the room serves many purposes. It is the surgical team’s office, lounge, patient consultation room, physical therapy office and lunchroom. We watched in amazement of the gamut of activity going on around us. It was in this office that we met Dr. Rai, ReSurge’s surgical outreach partner. After hearing so much about him, it was a great pleasure to meet him in person; Dr. Rai is everything that we had learned about him—warm, enthusiastic, hospitable and immensely humble. We discussed his background and his history as a surgeon and specifically the road that led him to his work in Nepal.

Before we knew it we were in our scrubs and headed into the operating room to see the surgical team at work. As it was our first surgery, we timidly watched the procedure from the end of the operating table. The doctors were correcting a cleft palate—a procedure that they have seen thousands of times. However, Dr. Rai explained that this was an especially difficult procedure as the cleft palate was extremely large. Seeing as there is only a limited amount of available tissue on the roof of the mouth, the gap was hard to close. We watched the team perform more of the day’s surgeries and soon became accustomed to the pace and happenings of the operating room.

After some noodles and tea back in the office, Dr. Rai led us on a short walk to meet some of the program’s directors. We learned of the plans for the new hospital he is building which include a ward dedicated entirely to acute burn patients—a facility that will greatly aid Dr. Rai and his team in their treatment of burn patients. The whiteboard in the office listed the tasks that they need to address concerning the hospital, including efforts to use sustainable energy sources to power the hospital. A lot of work remains before the hospital will be up and running, but their dedication and enthusiasm are inspiring!

 Overall it was great few days to start off our time in Nepal. We cannot wait to aid the team in any way possible over the next few weeks and we are eager to absorb everything we can learn about Nepal, its culture, and its medical care.

World Population Day 2012

July 11 marks the celebration of World Population Day, a day in which we raise awareness about the many issues that affect the world’s population.

As the global population grows, urban areas in the developing world are becoming more crowded. Urban fires frequently occur and they often leave survivors with devastating burn injuries, plunging poor families deeper into poverty. Today, our vision to prevent fires and the treatment we provide burn survivors is more relevant and vital than ever. 

This year’s theme highlights the importance of building a world in which every young person’s potential is fulfilled. Since 1969, ReSurge has envisioned a world in which no child suffers unnecessarily of a repairable congenital deformity or burn injury. For more than 42 years, we’ve sought to bring opportunities back to those who have lost hope, so that every member of our population is able to reach their full potential.

Join us in celebrating every life that is a brought into the world and every opportunity it represents. Help us raise awareness of the neglected global burn crisis and the many issues that we, as a global community, are striving to address. Together we can make the world a better place for generations to come.

Learn more about World Population Day click here.

2012 - 2013 Trip Schedule Announced

Every year, we send medical volunteers abroad to help provide reconstructive surgery to those in need and advanced training to our international medical partners and their staff.

Thanks to your support, planning for our upcoming trip season is underway! Today, we're happy to announce that our 2012 -2013 surgical and visiting educator trip schedule is now available online.

We invite you to take a look at the list of countries where we'll be providing surgeries and training this upcoming trip season!

Photo by Adam Forgash.

Honoring 50 years of service with 50 life-changing surgeries

Pictured: Beverly Kent, Connie Ojeda, Michael Donner and Susan Hayes.

In a few months, Connie Ojeda will be celebrating 50 years of service with her employer, Barco Uniforms. As an appreciation for her years of dedicated service, the philanthropic arm of the company, Barco’s Nightingales Foundation, has sponsored 50 surgeries for children around the world in her honor.

“The Barco family has been blessed with many special employees. Connie Ojeda is a very special one. [She is] always smiling and helpful with everyone. She not only excels in her work, but she is a joy to work with,” said Michael Donner, president and CEO of Barco Uniforms and founder of Barco’s Nightingales Foundation.

Recently, Susan Hayes, ReSurge president and CEO, and Beverly Kent, ReSurge director of volunteer services, visited Mrs. Ojeda at the Barco Uniforms headquarters to thank her and the foundation for their generous support.

“Barco Uniforms has created an inspiring work environment in which compassion is the cornerstone of their work culture. This was evident in every person we met during our visit and particularly true of Mrs. Ojeda, “said Susan Hayes.

ReSurge would like to congratulate Mrs. Ojeda for this milestone and thank her and Barco’s for this long-time support and generous gift.