Images of CAMTA

Here are the final images of the work during our first week. The new team has arrived and they'll be rolling up their sleeves for the second week. A whole new team and a whole new set of pictures! Here's Marc Moreau and Jay Jarvis operating on a 22 yr old girl with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. They are doing soft tissue releases. Very sad story but a demonstration of a mother's dedication! Mom carries her daughter off and on the bus beacause like most Ecuadoreans she doesn't have a car.Here's the young woman with the CP in recovery room with her mother and Dr. Andriy Rodyniuk. He's had a superb week — hard week, but great success with anesthesia and post-operative analgesia for the children.

Here's Maria and Gwen Callegari. Maria is an enfermera at the Tierra Nueva and she has worked very hard to support our team. Gwen is the week one adult recovery room nurse and is from the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

Here's Gayle Hiebert. Gayle is a family doctor from Edmonton and she has just silently worked away on the ward caring for the post-operative patients and the occasional sick staff member. Gayle will now leave for RioBamba and a project with a local doctor. Mary Hurlburt is a week two family doctor who has just returned from RioBamba.

Eve Moreau

Eve is our local “logistics coordinator”. She lives in Quito and has coordinated a lot of advance preparation. Eve is a grade 10/10 translator and has worked “continualmente” at the hospital.

Here Rachel Oates helps Pablo complete his physiotherapy training on Friday afternoon. It'll be home today with those crutches. Every patient has to be able to use the crutches for stairs before they can go home.

Here's two shots of Maria. She is a happy person with a new hip.
Warning — scroll no lower unless you want to see an operative picture with a little red!

Here's an x-ray of adult osteoarthritis. Look at the hip socket on the right. You can see that there is a definite line between the ball and the socket. Then look at the hip on the left side of the x-ray. That's actually the right hip but note there is no joint line. Osteoarthritis has eroded the cartilage and it's bone on bone! Ouch!

This is the final step of a total hip replacement. Here you can see the shiny round ball that has been attached to the new stem below it. The surgeons (Don Weber and Charlie Secretan) are about to reduce the hip and close the incision.

I have to show you this shot. It's not a simple matter of getting the patient from the recovery room to the ward on the second floor. The keys are on the second floor in the hand of the charge nurse for Tierra Nueva. Then once our nurse picks up the keys she gives them to the security guard and he calls the elevator and accompanies the patient up to the second floor. It's a tight fit in that little elevator!

Eileen and I made ward rounds together. Here's little Genesis playing with Dora the Explorer stickers. She's been pictured in a prior post. She went home Friday with her total body hip spica cast from upper stomach to knees and keeps it for six weeks. Hopefully her hip will be well positioned and she can walk properly!

Then Eileen and I dropped in on Daniel Vega Moreno. He's recovering well after a very difficult surgery. The Lethbridge operating room staff are donating as a group to support his long course of post-operative antibiotics. More on this later — Our two Lethbridge nurses for week one were Pauline Vatcher and Bernie Johnston.

And so faithful viewers that is week one completed. Today after ward rounds there are two opportunities — one bus is taking the week two people who arrived last night up to Otavalo. Another bus leaves for nature viewing – birds and botany – at 12 noon.

We would LOVE your comments. You can post from the blog or e-mail info@camta.com.

Thanks.

John on behalf of every member of CAMTA