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Filling the Gap
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very year the Blue Sky Surgical Team provides outpatient general surgical services at the Double Harvest Clinic in Haiti, where many members have served every year since 2007. The team includes general surgeons, pediatric surgeons, anesthesiologists, and CRNAs. March 2019 was their fourth year at the Double Harvest Clinic, a wonderful facility with Haitian staff, including a primary care physician and nurses. Blue Sky Surgical Team founder and leader, Anthony V. Coletta, MD, MBA, also serves as the Executive Chairman of the Board at Tandigm Health, LLC, a Population Health and Physicians Management Services Organization headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. The Blue Sky Surgical Team’s purpose is to conduct medical missions through Double Harvest Clinic outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to help “fill the gap” in a nation that has
8 PE GI Journal June 2020
no formal healthcare system or infrastructure—even seven years after its catastrophic earthquake. Since 2007, Dr. Coletta, a board-certified general surgeon, has volunteered as a surgical missionary to Haiti, performing surgical procedures alongside others looking to help. Following the earthquake of 2010, Dr. Coletta has led a team of doctors, nurses, and medical professionals on these annual missions (sometimes twice annually), traveling to the island with medical supplies and performing general and pediatric surgery on hundreds of patients through the years. On January 12, 2010, Haiti was devastated by an enormous 7.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred just 16 miles from Port-au-Prince. According to history.com, all of the capital’s hospitals, along with three facilities run by Doctors Without Borders, sustained severe damage. The toll on the people of Haiti remains incalculable. It is estimated that 316,000 people
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Blue Sky Surgical provides muchneeded GI services in Haiti
