2 Children return home after help from Shriners
With the seemingly unending flow of violent crime and highway carnage it’s easy to forget that the overwhelming majority of Belizeans are not only law abiding citizens, but actually love and care for each other. Over the weekend News 5’s Jacqueline Woods took a ride up the road to Ladyville–not to report on a tragedy–but to witness what some people felt was a medical miracle.
Grace Missark, Mother
?I am so happy. I am so happy that she?s coming because she has been away for six months. I miss her a lot.?
Jacqueline Woods
?So this is the best Father?s Day gift??
Ryan Flowers, Father
?In the world. Nothing could top this, nothing could top this.?
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
It was an emotional reunion for Grace Missark and Ryan Flowers, parents of four-year-old Stephanie Missark and three-year-old Darnel Flowers. The children were away in the United States for several months receiving orthopaedic care that will help them walk normally for the first time in their lives.
Grace Missark
?The two legs were bend so much, so she even was having pains on her hips and she can?t even walk a far distance.?
Ryan Flowers
?Actually it was his hip, like a ball-joint missing in his hip. And he just went to took an operation and they just fixed it, so that when he walks, one of his legs was shorter than one, but he?s better now.?
The children spent the past four months at Shriners Hospital in St. Louis where they underwent surgery followed by therapy. The trip and the operation were made possible through a programme called The Belize Crippled Children Project.
Eugene Verdu, Coord., Bz. Crippled Children Project
?Darnel had club foot, and what they did, they just straighten the bones, put pins in them until it healed. And Stephanie had a hip problem and had some pretty serious bone rearrangements there. But they?re both fine and they will recuperate within the next six months or so and be able to be very ambulatory and will be able to do anything a child their age could do.?
The project is spearheaded by Eugene Verdu, a former papal volunteer, who helped establish Scared Heart College in San Ignacio. For decades Verdu has been assisting Belizean children with various orthopaedic problems. As of today, a total of two hundred and twenty-five children have benefited from the medical care.
Eugene Verdue
?We do clinics here every January. The orthopaedic surgeon comes down and we do clinics here and we look at the children we have treated to make sure that everything has been done correctly and that the bones are mending properly, and if they need follow up we take them back.?
The programme is assisted by the Belize Rotary Club and Shriners Club of the United States. The project helps ten to twelve children a year. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.
On June twenty fifth another Belizean child, Cynthia Garcia, will be returning home after receiving medical care at Shriner’s, while on the twenty seventh, five more children will be making the trip to the U.S.A. to receive similar orthopaedic care.
