A group of nine Brandon health care workers have just returned from a week in the Central American country of Nicaragua, where we were part of a 65 person multi-disciplinarian team of nurses, physiotherapists, support workers and physicians based in Winnipeg, who have been traveling to this developing country for the past 10 years, performing knee and hip replacements in the capital city of Managua for underprivileged citizens there.
Operation Walk is a humanitarian mission funded and resourced entirely by industry-donated joint implants, salvaged Canadian equipment, fund raising and personal financing of each team member, who take a week of their holiday time to travel to one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Here 80% of people live on less than $2 per day. The team performs life changing joint replacements, bringing mobility, and freedom from pain to persons who would otherwise not have the opportunity or funds to access this surgery.
This year we performed 71 joint replacements over 3 operating days, with a clinic day preceding and ward recovery and physiotherapy following. The week offers unique interactions with joint recipients and their families, as we here their personal stories. Each year we are struck anew by the challenges of the inner city hospital’s extremely limited resources, lacking facility and sterility we take for granted at home. Simple items such as batteries or rolls of tape are often not available, and occasional power outages can leave the operating theatre in complete darkness. Patients can often not afford the medical devices and supplies they are expected to personally purchase, and are supported in large part by family members who camp on the hospital grounds and gather around their beds to provide basic care and food.
Over the years the Operation Walk initiative has been gradually resourcing this hospital with Operating Room equipment, much needed ward items like functional hospital beds, and upgrades like surgical sterilizers and anaesthesia equipment. Hundreds of wheelchairs, walkers, canes and braces are donated to assist both those who receive new joints and those we simply cannot operate on. We also invite their nurses and physicians into the ORs for observation and training. And when we leave, their staff collects much of the otherwise disposable items like tubing, unused dressing, and even sterilizable gloves to clean and reuse.
As a group of Brandon health care workers we were humbled once again by the local Nicaraguans who shower us with gratitude, token gifts, songs and spiritual blessings. We take these offerings back home with us, making the experience as memorable for us as it is life-changing for them. We are grateful to the many in our hospital and community who have supported and encouraged us this year and in years past, as we provide a small measure of surgical and medical care in a needy country.
Operation Walk is a not-for-profit, volunteer medical service organization whose purpose is to provide surgical treatments to patients who live in developing countries that have little or no access to debilitating bone & joint disease care.