Shriners offer more help for Belizeans with bone problems

You’ve seen them on this newscast before but it never hurts to acknowledge good deeds, no matter how many times they’re repeated.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
This young teenager is just one of many Belizean children benefiting from a medical programme that specifically treat patients suffering from all types of bone defects. Each year, specialists like Doctor Jack Sheridan, an orthopaedic surgeon at Shriners Hospital in the United States, visit the country to hold clinics that screen the children to identify their medical problems and what can be done to help them. The project is a joint effort by Shriners Hospital in St. Louis and the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Dr. John Waight has been with the programme for more than twenty years.

Dr. John Waight, Liaison Officer, Children Medical Programme
?The primary objective is to bring orthopaedic service to those who cannot get it. As you know, our orthopaedic service has developed tremendously over the past few years but there are still several things that we cannot deal with and Shriners Hospital in St. Louis is a hospital that is designed specifically for the treatment of children with orthopaedic problems and I can tell you it ranks among the best in the world.?

The patients are no older than eighteen, and for most, living a normal life has been difficult.

In this case, the X-ray shows the patient suffering from a severe curve in the spinal cord and he has been recommended to undergo medical treatment in the U.S. However, not all the children are referred abroad, as it depends on the severity of the problem and if the condition can be locally treated.

Dr. John Waight
?What we see a lot of that we refer to the Shriners, the problem was scoliosis, which is curvature of the spine. We?ve got a couple who have been treated who have been reviewed today and a couple more who we will be seeing shortly who may possible benefit from such treatment and then there are certain other congenital deformities, growth deformities of the hip and knee joint which are a little bit outside our scope. And those are the sorts of things we have been sending to the Shriners over the last few years.?

Five year old Stephanie Ezenwome is one of those patients who is now able to walk freely on her own after undergoing surgery last year.

Grace Ezenwome, Mother
?Her problem is that she had the two legs bend and she barely walked. She always cry for me to back she up.?

?She walks on her own, she runs and all the pains, everything gone and she fit.? (laughs)

Jacqueline Woods
?So she?s pretty active now.?

Grace Ezenwome
?Yeah, she more fitter than before.?

Jacqueline Woods
?You can?t keep up with Stephanie now.?

Grace Ezenwome
?I am so happy.?

Gene Verdu, Programme Dir., Children Medical Programme
?It makes us feel very good of course, and that?s our whole mission, to help these children lead normal lives so that any infirmity that they have, orthopaedically speaking, we correct it so that they can go on with their lives as normal human beings.?

Dr. Jack Sheridan, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Shriners Hospital
?Are all the children normal when they finish their treatment? Absolutely not, because many of the conditions are congenital conditions in which we don?t start with the normal extremity. We do our best to reconstruct, rehabilitate. So from a technical standpoint not every thing would be construed as normal, but if we can improve the quality of life, improve function, then that registers as a success and we think we?ve done a very good job in that respect.?

Since the programme started some thirty years ago, two hundred and fifty boys and girls have directly benefited.

This week a total of eighty children attended clinics that were held in Succotz, Benque Viejo del Carmen, and Belize City.