Shriner’s Hospital helps Belizean children
While most of us take our child’s ability to run and play for granted, for some children this simple pleasure is marred by legs that don’t function the way they should or are malformed. A number of Belizean doctors are working with specialists from a renowned American hospital to help these children, either by sending them abroad for surgery or performing some procedures here at home.
Looking at fifteen year old Leon Vargas, you would never know that this teenager was once a cripple. Today, thanks to the Belize Shriner’s Crippled Children’s Programme, Vargas is walking.
Catherine Flowers, Grandmother
“From when he was born, he had a dislocated hip and they thought that it would be best for them to take him to St. Louis where they can get him fixed up and he could walk.”
Vargas is just one of the one hundred and fifty children who have been given the opportunity to live a normal life. Over the past quarter of a century the program has provided crippled children with free access to bone specialists, who screened the young patients and then refer them to Shriner’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States. Dalila Norris, a concerned citizen was largely responsible for getting the program off the ground.
Dalila Norris, Coordinator, Belize Cripple Programme
“It started about twenty-five years ago when my nephew was born with a mild touch of cerebral palsy and this affected both legs, both feet I should say, and he went to see the doctors here and he went to Mexico and he wasn’t helped.”
Someone who came to the family’s aid was Gene Verdue of St. Louis. Verdue, who works along with Norris and the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital to provide orthopedic care to Belizean children, was in the country last week along with Dr. Jack Sheridan, a bone specialist from Shriner’s Hospital. Close to fifty children were screened to see if they are eligible to receive medical care in the United States.
Gene Verdue, Coordinator, Children’s Cripple Programme
“One of the long range projects is setting up an orthopedic clinic here. You have very good doctors here who are well qualified but with the absence of one equipment and some technicians, it is very difficult for them to do the types of surgery that we are doing in the United States.”
Dalila Norris
“And it makes us feel really, really good when we pick up the kids at the airport. We see the kids with bowed legs come back with straight legs. We see kids with club feet come back with straight little feet.”
The Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital has also been providing care to its older orthopedic patients through it’s working relationship with bone specialist Dr. Robert Bryner.
Dr. Robert Bryner, Orthopedic Surgeon
“Most of the equipment we have been bringing has to do with orthopedic surgery because that is my specialty and it was an area and a specialty that was not in Belize when I started to come;
it was something new. Our goal or my personal thought were that I would come and help with skills that were at that time not here in Belize. What was important to me was to train the doctors that were here to understand what orthopedic surgery was and to teach them skills that they didn’t have. The thing that was important to me was a matter of education in general. People became aware of what orthopedics can do.”
Dr. Francis Smith, Medical Chief of Staff, K.H.M.H.
“And I can assure you if it wasn’t for Dr. Bryner bringing in almost all necessary orthopedic instruments and implants, I would be unable to practice orthopedics in Belize. All the instruments I have used are instruments that he has brought in along with some other groups such as Rotary and Jack Sheridan from the Shriner’s Institute for Crippled Children in the States.”
Dr. Andre Sosa, a Belizean orthopedic surgeon who recently returned home to work says it can get frustrating when you don’t have the materials to work with.
Dr. Andre Sosa, Orthopedic Surgeon, K.H.M.H.
“You know when you come back and you are anxious to try and implement the things you have been trained to do. Sadly we are a bit limited in so far as equipment is concerned. We need to get more and more advanced equipment.”
Smith says while he has been extremely grateful for the donations, he says as a Belizean surgeon, he can’t understand, with millions of dollars being spent in health care, why they are still unable to purchase basic orthopedic instruments.
Dr. Francis Smith
“And I can’t really see where all those millions of dollars have gone because at least in my area, orthopedic section, I have seen no instruments nothing bought, nothing relevant or anything useful.”
Smith says although he and other doctors have been critical of K.H.M.H. because they want continuous improvement, the hospital is still the only place that offers orthopedic services. Presently at K.H.M.H. there is a team of orthopedic surgeons, specialists and pediatricians who have committed themselves to providing only the best in 1999.
If you have a child with orthopedic problems you can contact Dr. Francis Smith or Dr. Andre Sosa at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
