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Patient referrals are being accepted for the Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital / The Shalom Foundation’s November 6-12 (trip was previously set for mid-September) plastic surgery trip to Guatemala City.
Potential Procedures, by body region (not all-inclusive):
Skin, scalp, soft tissue:
- Large nevi
- Subcutaneous masses
- Vascular malformations
- Wounds
- Masses
- Cleft lip and cleft palate
Hand:
- Masses
- Congenital hand deformities
- constriction bands
- polydactyly
- syndactyly (web fingers)
Burns:
If you have any questions, please email Allison, at ABender@theshalomfoundation.org.
A little girl, 20 months old has a cleft palate and has already had the lip repair, and needs phase 2 of her surgery. She doesn’t need special supplies or formula at this point. We are networking to find a cleft team that is going to be in Antigua or GC soon. Any ideas? Please respond by commenting, below.
Health for Humanity’s surgical team is preparing for two upcoming surgery trips:
- Obras Sociales in Antigua, Nov 6th – 19th: Gyne general and plastic (cleft lip and palate) surgery.
- Hospital Hilario Galindo near Retalhuleu: Nov 11th – 18th doing Gyn surgery.
Patients need to be registered with and assessed by the respective hospitals first. Contact information@healthforhumanity.org for more information.
Agape in Action is currently accepting patient referrals for OB/Gyn surgery, and Plastic Surgery (clefts). The team will be in Quiche from June 13-17. Please click here for more details.
Rotaplast is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides free multidisciplinary care for cleft lip and palate and other conditions requiring reconstructive surgery. They promote self-sufficiency in the countries where they work by training local physicians, counseling families, and collaborating with health officials on the development of sustainable cleft lip and palate programs.
What is a Rotaplast Mission? Clefts of the lip and palate are among the most common of all birth defects. However, in some areas of the world treatment is not common. Untreated, these children are ridiculed, rejected from society, and often deprived of an education. They are prone to serious upper respiratory problems, hearing loss, speech and dental problems. Rotaplast works locally to educate families and communities and to provide free operations and therapeutic follow-up care for patients.
Multi-disciplinary surgical teams
Medical teams include reconstructive surgeons with special training in cleft care, pediatricians, nurses, pediatric anesthesiologists, dentists, orthodontists, and speech pathologists. Many teams also include geneticists focusing on researching causes of clefts. These highly skilled professionals work closely with local hospital staff and doctors sharing techniques and working side-by-side to augment and increase care and capacity for treatment. Non-medical volunteers, who pay for their own transportation, perform needed tasks such as instrument sterilization, translation, recovery room monitoring, and comforting families. Rotaplast Missions vary in size with teams ranging from 15 to 35 members. A typical mission lasts two weeks.
International partnerships
Rotaplast is an active partner wherever they go. They travel by invitation to each site. They work with hospitals, surgeons, local governments, NGO’s and other groups to bring needed care, medical equipment and supplies. Rotaplast also has a longstanding partnership with Rotary Clubs around the world. Working with these service clubs at mission sites, Rotaplast builds logistical capability to consistently support medical teams annually and to establish self-sufficiency in country.
Volunteers
Rotaplast is an organization built on volunteer spirit. Each year, hundreds of volunteers donate their valuable time and talent to treat over 1,000 children. Opportunities range from joining a Mission Team to serving as an Ambassador.
In Guatemala, Rotaplast will be in Retalhuleu, from May 16-31, 2010. The team will be returning to Guatemala in 2011, from April 3-16. During their trip, the group will post updates and photos on their blog.
To learn more about Rotaplast International, please visit their website. To learn more about the sponsoring Rotary Group from Sarasota, FL, please click here.
Our friends at Casa de Sion have seen a baby today who needs some help. I believe that the family is in Solola, but we will have to confirm that with Vicki. Please read their report, and email Vicki at the address below, or click on the “Leave a Comment” link below, if you have any ideas.
I wondered a few days ago if we would ever see a baby with a cleft palate that needed help. Well at the pediatric clinic today we did. A very poor Mayan family showed up with 4 children under 8. All were glassy eyed and severely malnourished. The 4 month old baby had a really bad cleft palate making it difficult for him to take any nourishment. We gave him formula and bottles and infant cereal. We gave the rest of the family 15 bags of incaparina. They had walked a long ways to get to the clinic. We want to continue to help them and esp. to get the babies’ lip fixed. To do this we need your help. Write me to let me know you want to help: 20.vicki@gmail.com.
We received an update from Vicki about this family. I want to thank everyone who helped to network for this family. For me, this has highlighted the potential power of networking amongst both medical and non-medical groups.
Thanks to ClinicLink.org, and the post from my blog about needing help for the cleft palate baby, help has come. We have specialty bottles we can get right away. We also have a hospital in San Marcos who will take all the children if malnourished and nurse them to better health. They will work to get the baby healthy enough to have surgery. They have a surgery team coming in May that can fix his cleft palate. Now I just have to connect everybody so it happens. We had several other people who offered to help such as COTA. I plan to connect with them also. thanks everyone.
Here is a picture of the baby being held by Debbie, my volunteer coordinator who ran the clinic yesterday. The other picture is of the family of the baby. Debbie says all of the kids need help.
 
Iowa MOST is a Rotary District 6000 initiative, which provides surgical repair for cleft lip and palate to individuals living in the western highlands of Guatemala. Without Iowa MOST, they would not be given this opportunity. District 6000 Rotarians have cultivated a strong collaborative partnership with their friends in the Rotary Club of Huehuetenango, Guatemala to carry out the mission.
IOWA MOST FACTS:
- The first surgical mission took place in February/March of 2006.
- The mission team consisted of 26 medical and non-medical personnel from the U.S. and 2 Guatemalan doctors.
- The MOST team performed cleft lip repairs, myringotomies, ear tube placements, fistula repairs, a frenulectomy, and tooth extractions, and began a database of patients for the next mission.
- Equipment and supplies were generously donated for the mission from many sources and with the help of FAMSCO.
- Mission equipment and supplies valued at $20,000 were donated to the Hospital Nacional in Huehuetenango.
- Iowa MOST now serves two communities in Guatemala–Huehuetenango and Quetzaltenango.
- In 2010, Iowa MOST performed its 5th mission in Guatemala with its Rotary parners in Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela.
To learn more about Iowa MOST, please visit their website or blog.
 Children of the Americas has returned from their annual medical /surgical trip to Guatemala. While in Retalhuleu from January 16-22, COTA donated 128 general, orthopedic, obstetrical and plastic surgeries to the citizens of this western coastal region.
Over 1,400 women and children were seen in our medical clinic and all patients received donated pharmaceuticals from the COTA pharmacy. In addition to the above services, the orthotic and prosthetic team distributed walkers, wheelchairs and crutches to patients who were screened for these particular needs. The COTA dental team cared for 134 patients during our visit.
One hundred volunteer medical and support staff members traveled from 16 different cities in the U.S. to travel with Children of the Americas for the 2010 team.
To learn more about this group, please visit their website.
Here is a sampling of photos from their trip:
  
September 1, 2007: Evelyn arrived with a severe cleft lip and palate. She and her parents were given much support from the midwife, doctors and nurses from the minute she was born. They recommended and located a specialty bottle, made for babies born with cleft lip/palate, so she would immediately be able to get the nourishment she needed to grow and thrive. They not only gave their family hope and encouragement, but also the education they needed to best support Evelyn.
March 27, 2008: Diego was born in Guatemala. He also arrived with a severe cleft lip and palate, but unlike Evelyn’s situation, Diego and his parents were sent home from the hospital with no hope or encouragement. There was no education or advice available in the remote village where Diego was born; no one to show his parents how to feed and take care of him.
 Evelyn’s Baskets of Love and Life is a mission dedicated to providing necessary items for babies born with cleft lip/palate in Guatemala. The founders began their mission after their first granddaughter, Evelyn, was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate. The midwives and nurses were very helpful; Evelyn received wonderful care and has since thrived. A doctor on her team, originally from Guatemala, told them about babies born there that struggled to survive because they could not breast feed, and the mothers did not know what to do when regular bottles didn’t work. Those babies who did survive were often malnourished to the point that surgeons would have to turn them away. Evelyn’s Baskets was established to provide items necessary for the care of babies born with cleft lip and palate, giving hope and encouragement to their parents and caregivers.
Joe and Jane Bartel, the organization’s founders, went together to Guatemala in the late fall of 2007 when they brought two specialty bottles and a breast pump for babies born with cleft lip and palate. A friend helped them translate the story of Evelyn. They put a basket together with the bottles and breast pump and they brought it to a local clinic.
Jane decided to go again and to bring more specialty bottles and breast pumps. In March of 2008, Jane and her friend Susan Moretz, who could speak Spanish, made plans to meet with different missionaries in ten different places to bring Evelyn’s Baskets of Love and Life to help babies who were born with cleft lip and/or palate. Jane, Susan and a friend, Felix Santizo (a friend Jane had made the first time she had visited in Guatemala) traveled together. They went to visit Lloyd and Melanie who were the missionaries for the mission Porch de Salomon. They said that a friend, Estrella, had heard of a baby who was born with a cleft lip and palate and was sent home with no hope and no additional information on how to feed the baby. After two days of everyone searching, they found the baby and his family. They were able to visit them, and with Estrella translating, Jane told them about Evelyn and showed pictures of her before and after her first surgery. They gave them a filled basket, showing them the specialty bottles and breast pump and explained how to use them. Baby Diego took to the bottle right away! Holding hands, Diego’s mother and Jane wept together with joy and hope. They visited ten other places with the help of Felix whose assistance is huge for the mission. They left a total of 24 baskets, and continue to hear success stories from grateful families.
To learn more about Evelyn’s Baskets, please visit their website.
 Health for Humanity is a Canadian-based volunteer organization that provides quality medical care, equipment and supplies to the poor of Guatemala and other developing countries. Health for Humanity currently sends multidisciplinary teams of volunteer health care professionals to Guatemala and the Philippines. In addition to the surgical program, Health for Humanity works with local NGOs in Guatemala to support various other health care initiatives. All donations are used to pay for hospital costs, medical equipment, medications and operating room supplies. They have no paid staff and minimal administrative costs. Volunteers pay for their own travel and accommodation.
Their first surgical mission spent 2 weeks in Guatemala in November 2002 and since then they have sent five more surgical teams to Guatemala. More recently, they have also sent two surgical teams to the Philippines. Their teams have now completed more than a 1,000 surgeries and supplied much needed equipment to the hospitals they work in. They work in cooperation with local healthcare professionals and provide education when they can. In addition, they have provided immunization services to the residents and staff of the hospital in Guatemala.
Health for Humanity will:
- Organize multidisciplinary teams of volunteer healthcare professionals and support staff to travel to developing countries to provide needed healthcare services.
- Collect the funds, medical equipment and supplies to provide these services and arrange their transport to developing countries.
- Provide surgical services at hospitals in developing countries in collaboration with the local hospital staff.
- Provide funding and other support to their partner NGOs in the countries they visit.
- Empower the people and healthcare workers of the countries they visit to meet their own healthcare needs through education and training.
- Work in collaboration with the local Canadian Embassy Staff, Governmental, other non-governmental organizations and the local healthcare community to identify other healthcare projects for which Health for Humanity volunteers can provide assistance.
- Remain non-political.
- Interact with clients in a respectful and non-judgmental manner.
Health for Humanity’s next trip to Guatemala will take place from November 7 – November 21. To learn more about the group, please visit their website.
 Each January, Children of the Americas, Inc. sends a volunteer medical/surgical team to work in a different area of Guatemala. The duration of the trip is one week, and generally takes place in the second half of January.
Click here to view a trip report from their 2010 visit to Retalhuleu.
Children of the Americas, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to providing necessary medical and surgical services to indigent children and their families in Guatemala. This goal is accomplished through annual surgical trips to the outlying regions of Guatemala, as well as by networking donated surgical care in the United States for Guatemalan children who are in need of critical surgery that is not available to them in Central America.
Since 1987 the corporation has identified specific medical needs of patients through volunteer medical/surgical mission teams and by referrals from other agencies. The teams of volunteer staff provide medical services and surgeries on-site in Central America within the realm of our surgical, medical and dental expertise. We also provide donations of ambulatory aids, prosthetics, and orthotics.
Since incorporation, more than 300 children have come to the United States for medical treatment that they could not or were not receiving in Guatemala. In addition, over 5,000 women and children have been helped abroad through the medical-surgical teams and the delivery of supplies. This includes children with craniofacial deformities, heart problems, burn scars, lymphademas, hemangiomas, and complicated orthopedic problems.
To find out more about Children of the Americas, visit their website, or blog. Children of the Americas, Inc., is an all-volunteer organization.
Here is one of the many precious children whose life and health was improved by the dedicated volunteers at COTA:
Alex, upon his arrival in the US (5/08), and upon his return to Guatemala (12/08).
 
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