I spent 16 days in Honduras this month. This was my third visit to help surgeons in the operating room in the town of Gracias for the Luke Society. This is an organization that sets up medical clinics in 3rd world countries and supports local physicians to provide healthcare in the communities they live. Unlike others, this Michigan physician, his wife and the board members have raised money to build a surgery center to provide more operating rooms for medical teams to operate. Before this was available the medical teams used the hospital operating rooms thus closing them down for a week for local surgeons other than for emergencies.
The physicians see patients the first day of each week to set-up the week's surgery schedule. The first week was general and plastic surgery and the second week was orthopedic. The week before I was in Honduras a medical team did eye, plastic surgery and operated a GI lab.
Since the surgeon who began this ministry plans to work part-time in Honduras later this year, he is building a house for himself with room enough to house medical teams. Several volunteers came to help with construction, including Tom.
In two weeks we accomplished 94 surgeries that included shoulder, hernia repair, knee surgery, gall bladder removal, facial fracture, bullet removal, hand surgery ankle fusions, arm fracture and various minor repairs. The children are absolutely beautiful with big brown eyes, long eyelashes and beautiful skin color. They will capture your heart in an instant! We changed the lives of children with surgical repair of cleft lips and club feet.
The second week's team included several dentists and medical doctors who pulled and restored teeth, diagnosed illness, provided medications and passed out de-worming medicine. Each person received the gospel message and this year a children's evangelism message was acted out with a puppet show put on by children from the bilingual school in Gracias.
The warm, sunny weather was a blessing for travel to the villages for the dental and medical teams and for those of us who walked the mile to the surgery center each morning. We stayed in hotels in Gracias and ate at Frony's who is a woman from the Netherlands that came to Honduras for work in the Peace Corp many years ago and stayed. Her place has beautiful tropical gardens surrounding the buildings and safe and good food on a terrace overlooking the city.
2 comments:
I love the pictures and the stories. I especially appreciate hearing that club feet were repaired as my left foot was clubbed when I was born. Such a blessing that you can give of yourself in such a way!
Loved all the pics and hearing a little bit about your time there. It is truly a blessing for you guys to go over there and help. Look forward to hearing more and see more pics!
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