Holiday With Heart

There's to be a special guest performer tonight; we're curious and full of anticipation. In previous years, weve enjoyed traditional Ecuadorean dancers, pan-flute trios, marimba bands and guitar solos. Who will it be tonight?

A single guitar begins playing a mellow tune and a young woman in an elegant, full-length dress strolls towards the dance floor with a microphone in hand. The woman, Miriam, smiles and starts singing. We are mesmerized and remain silent. But when the merengue band starts in and Miriam swivels her hips, turning full circle to the beat of the music, we are brought to our feet, clapping delightedly. Many are moved to tears. This is a momentous and significant moment, both for Miriam and for us.

When Miriam first came to the medical clinic, she was a 29-year-old with a big dream. She couid hardly move. Suffering from severe, untreated rheumatoid arthritis, she had not walked for four years and needed to be lifted up onto the examining table by her brother. "I want to walk againj' she said. "I want to study again. I want to dance again - to salsa."
The surgeons decided that the best approach was to perform a series of surgeries over a two-year period. During the first operation, Miriam's right hip and knee were replaced. The following year, her left hip and knee were replaced. The journey through surgery after surgery and rehabilitation was not easy, but Miriam never wavered in her hope to walk and dance again. Now here she is, standing, walking, singing and swaying those hips at the Tomebamba Cuenca Rotary party. Not only can Miriam dance, she also works full-time as a secretary and is able to support herself and her extended family. In gratitude, Miriam returns every year to work as a translator for Operation Esperanza, the team that helped make her dream come true.

 

Operation Esperanza (Operation Hope), as the mission is called, provides free hip and knee-replacement surgeries to poor Ecuadoreans: It treats adults as well as offering surgeries for children with dislocated hips and club feet. The team leader is orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Thomas Crejdanus, who began the mission to Cuenca i7 years ago and has been on staffat the Royal Alexandra Hospital since 1992. Earlier this year, 16 stafffrom the Royal Alexandra Hospital - 12 nurses, two  physiotherapists, one surgical assistant and the hospital's medical photographer - travelled with him to Cuenca, swapping vacation time to work 12-hour shifts abroad. Complementing them were doctors and nurses from the Misericordia and Leduc hospitals, as well as from hospitals in Calgary and Vancouver. As the wife of the team leader and a former nurse, I, too, was a part of Operation Esperanza.

Cuenca is a city of 350,000 and lies approximately 435 kilometres south of Quito in the highlands of the Andes Mountains. Its mild weather, narrow cobblestone streets, picturesque flower markets and grand domed cathedrals attract many North American retirees. This vibrant coionial city, with its modern hospitals, however, belies the fact that a very large number of Ecuadorians live in poverty with no access to healthcare or even clean drinking water. Poverty is most prevalent in rural areas and greater among the many indigenous people.

Most of the patients travel a long way to the clinic in Cuenca, often coming from mountain villages as high as 3,500 metres or more, or from towns as far as a l4-hour drive away. Getting to the hospital is a major feat in itseif when one cant walk or afford transportation. The line-up begins in the morning even though the clinic doesnt open until the afternoon. Eventually the line snakes from the clinic entrance, up the ambulance ramp, and down the block. For every patient, there are at least a half dozen accompanying family members, including many children. Arriving at the screening clinic early in the heat of the afternoon with the rest of the team, I wonder how we will ever see them a1l before midnight.

Many are indigenous Ecuadoreans wearing traditional clothes - women wearing short, colourful pleated skirts, lace blouses and Panama hats, and men with ponchos, felt hats and rubber boots. It's an interesting and colourful gathering. The ones who have been referred here are the poorest of the poor for whom medicine and surgery is either unavailable or unaffordabie. Here, the patients, like Miriam, hope their prayers will be answered - a new hip or knee, corrective surgery for a ciub foot, medicine allowing relief from pain, deformity and immobility.

Many Royal Alexandra Hospital staff members have gone to Ecuador with Operation Esperanza for as many as l0 consecutive years - weli before the words "voluntourism" and "service travel" became popular. To increase their chances for getting the time off, they submit their vacation requests a year ahead of time. Countless hours are spent prior to departure - fund-raising, planning, gathering and packing a huge amount of supplies, including hip and knee prostheses, medication, crutches, walkers and many stuffed animals. When itt time to go, several hospital staffleave young children behind, relying on the support of family members to make their participation on the mission possible.

"It is Miriam who reminds me of why we do this work," says operating room nurse, Lisa Watson, who has gone to Cuenca annually for 10 years. 'As much as the patients are blessed, I am blessed even more - by the love of the patients and the fulfillment of seeing them after Isurgery]."

 

For nurse Cari Noelck, in charge of the operating rooms in Cuenca, the most recent trip marks her 10th year with the team, having takeir two years off after giving birth to her youngest daughter. "I probably average about 20 to 30 hours per month year-round organizing, buying and packing supplies and instruments," she says.  "It's a lot of work, but it's re-energizing. I always come back with a new appreciation for my iife and all that we have in Canada."

Working with Operation Esperanza this year was a new experience for nurse Susan Mann. "I am overwhelmed," she says.  What we do here without state of the art equipment is phenomenal ... When I get back home, I'll dig down inside me and always remember this,' The experience also has Mann reflecting about her life in Alberta. "We are surrounded by plenty. We are so blessed. We need to use some of this to give back to those in need."

For "Dr. Tom," as they call him in Ecuador, volunteering his time and skills in Cuenca, "brings me peace, happiness, and the satisfaction of knowing I have made a dramatic difference in the lives of these poor people."

A local physician, Dr. Manuel Avila, travels to the patients' homes to provide follow-up care after the team leaves. Poor himself because he devotes his medical practice to helping the needy, Avila used to make these home visits by bus and burro until a volunteer group of construction workers from the U.S. raised funds to buy him a car. Despite their poverty, the patients find ways to show their gratitude. One family provided Avila with an enormous breakfast of guinea pig, chicken, potatoes and fresh milk. At the end of that day, he set out for home with a 5O-pound bag of potatoes, bags of queso (cheese), two guinea pigs, and two live chickens in the back seat of his car. Like Miriam's, the lives of many Ecuadoreans
have been dramatically changed over the years because a group of skilled healthcare providers were willing to sacrifice some vacation time to go abroad to serve others in dire need. In doing so, their lives, too, have been changed.
Plans for next year's mission, from January 30 to February 10, 2014, are already underway.