NE WS PEACE
Send One. Train Many. Heal the World.
A Newsletter from Physicians for Peace
Fourth Quarter | 2012
Dana Doan, Global Health Programs Coordinator, with Rudy, Vanessa and another patient at Benjamin Bloom Children’s Hospital in El Salvador
Equipped to Teach, Train & Heal
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our years ago, 11-year-old Rudy collided with a family Unfortunately, in impoverished regions, these resources can be member who was carrying a pot of hot cooking oil. Rudy impossible to find. That’s where Physicians for Peace steps in. suffered traumatic burns on his face, neck and chest. His injuries “Burn units depend on material support because they quickly run twisted his muscles and mangled his skin. At Benjamin Bloom out of essential rehabilitation materials due to the high volume Children’s Hospital in San Salvador, El Salvador, emergency of burn patients,” said Kristin Koch, MS, OTRL, a Physicians for interventions saved his life, but by October 2012, Rudy needed Peace International Medical Educator (IME) who worked with the follow-up surgery and rehabilitation to enhance his Bloom Hospital team to care for Rudy. range of motion and reduce his terrible scars. Rudy Global health experts Rudy directly benefitted from supplies just wanted to go home and play with his friends. million from Physicians for Peace, including pliable estimate The nurses and therapists wanted the same thing material for his splints, compression for him – a normal life – but they knew Rudy people are garments and age-appropriate therapeutic faced a grueling path. He isn’t alone. Global health each year. toys that make rehabilitation like a game. experts estimate 6.6 million people are burned each year. Many of these victims are women and children. Caring “Rudy has had a tough few years but with the Bloom Hospital for burn patients requires specific skills and a range of materials team’s skills and donated supplies, he will be playing with his and equipment – compression garments and face masks that friends soon,” Koch said. minimize scars, among many other resources, some as “basic” as We’ll highlight recent material donations, and tell you more about plastic and plaster. These supplies dramatically improve a patient’s how those supplies help make our world a healthier place. healing, and allow healthcare teams to work more efficiently.
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burned
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CEO Message Dear Friends, As I write this, many of our friends in New York and New Jersey are still without power and water in the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy. The storm was one of the costliest in U.S. history, and it took a devastating toll on U.S. communities along the coast. Our thoughts remain with those who were hit by this terrible disaster. Sandy also cut a deadly swath through the Caribbean, killing people in Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, where the storm forced the evacuation of about 30,000 people and damaged 6,500 homes. In Haiti, more than 50 died and dozens went missing. Haiti is the western hemisphere’s poorest country, and the country’s poverty makes it particularly vulnerable to disasters; 350,000 people in Port-au-Prince still live in tents as refugees displaced by the country’s 2010 earthquake. More than 7,500 people have died from the country’s recent cholera outbreak. v
Brig. Gen. Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.) President and CEO
In both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Physicians for Peace focuses on education and training, not disaster relief. The need for trained healthcare professionals and properly resourced medical settings becomes especially obvious after tragedy strikes. During a disaster, hospitals need heavy equipment, like generators, but also basic supplies, like casting materials and sterilized instruments. Patients need trained nurses and surgeons. In the aftermath of a storm, the injured need rehabilitation and ongoing care. All of these needs rest on two things: trained healthcare providers in addition to hospitals and clinics that are stocked with materials, supplies and equipment. Our vision for our partners in Haiti and the Dominican Republic is much like our vision in other partner countries: We want communities to have trained healthcare professionals and properly supplied hospitals and clinics, so that patients get the care they need to live healthy lives, in times of chaos and in times of calm. In the Dominican Republic and Haiti, we’ve delivered direct patient care and we’re supporting a distance-learning program for orthotic and prosthetic technicians. We also mobilize supplies and equipment that our partners can put to immediate use. By connecting our partners with the training and the material they need to serve patients, we help prepare communities for disasters like Sandy, but we also help them build a solid foundation for everyday care. In fact, resources and supplies are critically important to our education and training programs. We know that a lack of resources is a key barrier to care, and securing these resources (either by accepting direct material donations as Gifts in Kind or by purchasing specific equipment when essential) helps healthcare professionals in underserved regions provide better care for their patients. Over the years we’ve refined our Gifts in Kind process to ensure that we’re operating as efficiently as possible when it comes to assessing needs and then sourcing, shipping and delivering these supplies and equipment to our partner hospitals and clinics. We work
MISSION SCHEDULE
diligently to match donated supplies from Gifts in Kind donors with
craft. It’s also happening in the Philippines, where Physicians for
the identified needs of our in-country partners to ensure that we
Peace-Philippines has put the gifts of companies like VonZipper and
are sending appropriate, fit-for-purpose supplies and equipment
Visionworks of America to work toward a truly worthy goal: the
to meet patient care needs. We are also mindful that high-tech
elimination of avoidable blindness by the year 2020.
equipment is often not the best solution in regions that lack
This special issue of NewsPeace is dedicated to exploring some
replacement parts, maintenance personnel and a consistent power supply.
recent material and supply donations, and how they’ve made a difference in global health. In this holiday season, I hope you’ll take
In some cases, the materials we supply enable training and education
the time to visit www.physiciansforpeace.org/get-involved to find
in advanced techniques that could not have been taught without
out how you can become involved in our efforts, either as a donor
these materials. I’m always amazed by the ingenuity I see at our
or by coordinating a supply drive for materials. As always, you can
partner sites. Burn care professionals will find a way to help their
contact our office for more information: 757.625.7569.
patients even in impoverished settings. Advanced techniques do
Thank you for all that you do to make the world healthier.
not necessarily require advanced materials; something as “simple” as plastic or plaster can go a long way toward getting a patient on the road to recovery, especially when a trained professional is there
Brig. Gen. Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.)
to put that material to healing work.
President and CEO
Your support allows us to provide a steady pipeline of supplies
Sincerely,
and materials to our partners. Because of this equipment, we can coordinate hands-on workshops, so that healthcare professionals have the opportunity to learn how to use these supplies while a Physicians for Peace IME is present and acting as a mentor. The need is great: In 2012 alone we’ve delivered some of the most basic supplies (disposable gloves) and some of global health’s most innovative machines, including an anesthesia machine that can run uninterrupted in countries where frequent power losses are the norm. Thanks to these supplies, healthcare teams have a greater opportunity to heal and a better chance to make a difference. We are also grateful for the strong partnerships we have established with manufacturers and suppliers who demonstrate their commitment to global health through donations of critical supplies and equipment. That’s exactly what’s happening in Nicaragua, where we’ve been working collaboratively with The Autonomous University in León and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., to build the country’s first dental hygiene and dental assistant tracks. Corporate partners, including Dentsply and Hu-Friedy Manufacturing Company, have stepped forward to help supply these young students with the instruments they need to hone their
November 4 - 10, 2012 • San José, Costa Rica
January 8 - 12, 2013 • Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
February 4 - 7, 2013 • Hyderabad, India
November 28 - December 2, 2012 • Léon, Nicaragua
January 11 - 18, 2013 • Nablus, West Bank
February 6 - 10, 2013 • Bicol, Philippines
January 3 - March 27, 2013 • Blantyre, Malawi
January 21 - 25, 2013 • Guayaquil, Ecuador
February 18 - 22, 2013 • Santiago, Dominican Republic
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Equipped to Teach, Train & Heal
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Enhancing Partners’ Capacity Since 1989, Physicians for Peace has mobilized millions of dollars in shipments of high-need equipment and supplies for partners in underserved areas, including countries in Central America, where burns remain a grave health concern. By combining materials with training and education, Physicians for Peace empowers local healthcare teams to reach more patients with tools and techniques that lead to better outcomes, including safer surgeries, more advanced rehabilitation and fewer emotional and physical scars. While providing training in El Salvador, Kristin Koch, MS, OTRL, taught therapists at Bloom Hospital to use donated strapping materials and compression garments to manage scars and improve range of motion, so that patients could return to their everyday activities, including work and school. For instance, she used Aquaplast, a pliable material donated by Patterson Medical, Bolingbrook IL, to splint 10 pediatric burn patients during her training program. IMEs like Koch, Jonathan Niszczak, OT, and Michael Serghiou, OTR, often use material donated from U.S. supporters, including plastic and burn garment material, alongside locally sourced supplies, like bamboo or leather, to craft creative, low-cost solutions that raise the level of care in ways that are appropriate to the resource limitations of partner sites. Innovation and creativity are also bedrocks of our work in Haiti, where Hanger Inc., one of the world’s leading providers of orthopedics and prosthetics, joined with Physicians for Peace after the January 2010 earthquake to form the Haitian Amputee Coalition. For nearly three years, coalition partners have collaborated to provide both direct care to Haitians injured in the disaster and training tracks for healthcare professionals who work with the country’s disabled population.
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While providing training in El Salvador, Kristin Koch, MS, OTRL, taught therapists how to use donated materials to help patients heal and return to everyday activities.
Here again, materials and supplies are a pivotal part of our work, and 335 Hanger locations from 45 states have mobilized donations for our efforts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In both countries, Physicians for Peace is leading efforts to provide distance learning to orthotic and prosthetic technicians to help nurture a new generation of providers in underserved areas of the Caribbean. Donations from partners like Hanger add a vital and practical component to students’ hands-on workshops and training.
A Focus on ‘Fit-for-Purpose’ Supplies When it comes to supplying materials and equipment, Physicians for Peace partners with in-country hospitals and clinics to pinpoint needs and meet specific objectives. This fall, we joined with Asociación Dominicana de Rehabilitación (ADR), a longtime partner in Santo Domingo, to purchase a new oven for the group’s orthotic and prosthetic clinic. The oven replaced a 10-year-old model that had stopped regulating temperature. As a result, orthotic and prosthetic technician students couldn’t melt the plastic needed to complete their training. v
“The oven continued to give them great difficulty, negatively affecting the training and forcing them to find another oven to use (outside of ADR),” said Innes Boland, a Physicians for Peace Global Health Program Director. “As a result, ADR and Physicians for Peace decided to come together to jointly purchase a new oven, which will serve to benefit the trainees and the patients served at ADR.”
Gilberto Mejia, one of our first prosthetic trainers in the Dominican Republic program, pictured above center left, leading a workshop on lower limb prosthetic training with ADR student technicians – Dominican Republic October 2012
GET INVOLVED TODAY 2
Innovative Solutions for Low-Resource Areas Practicality is also a critical issue in Africa, where a small, lifelike doll developed for underserved communities is helping midwives and traditional birth attendants save newborns during the “Golden Minute,” the critical 60 seconds after birth when many infants struggle to breathe. Because many midwives and traditional birth attendants can’t rely on electricity to help them resuscitate newborns, Physicians for Peace has focused recent training efforts in Malawi and Nigeria on “Helping Babies Breathe,” a neonatal resuscitation curriculum for resource-limited circumstances developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other partners.
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By leading hands-on workshops with tools such as NeoNatalie, a lifelike newborn simulator, we’re helping midwives and traditional birth attendants save lives.
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During a recent training program in Rivers State, Physicians for Peace delivered 16 NeoNatalie dolls made by Laerdal Global Health to local healthcare professionals. The versatile simulators can be filled with either air or water, replicating the weight of a newborn, all without the use of electricity or batteries.
Photo By: Brian Clark
“Nigeria is a very family-oriented country, and children hold a special role,” said Dr. Ogu Emejuru, a Physicians for Peace IME and pediatrician who splits his time between Chesapeake, Va., and Rivers State, Nigeria, where he serves as Special Assistant to the Governor on Environmental Health.“Every death profoundly affects the community. By focusing our efforts on that first moment of life, we can give teams the specific training they need to make a real difference.”
Nigerian mother watching over her baby
USAID estimates 4 million newborns die in the first four weeks of life, accounting for 40% of all deaths among children under the age of 5. In Nigeria, where 700 babies die each day, the Physicians for Peace training and material support allowed 150 workshop participants to practice their hands-on skills under the guidance of our IME team.
“Every healthcare provider deserves the chance to be educated and to have the tools to provide the best care possible in their given environment,” Lawton said.
Photo By: Brian Clark
The opportunity for healthcare professionals to train with NeoNatalie could mean the difference between life and death for a baby, said Stacy Lawton, RN, adding that the real-life quality of the simulators boosts midwives’ and birth attendants’ confidence in the all-tooimportant first seconds of life…and that’s good news for underserved communities struggling with high infant mortality rates.
For information on our current material and supply needs, or to find out how your community group can organize a supply drive that fits a specific need, please contact Physicians for Peace at 757.625.7569 or email info@physiciansforpeace.org.
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DONOR Spotlight Hu-Friedy Helps Physicians for Peace Deliver Smiles This fall, Hu-Friedy Manufacturing Company donated instrument
“Hu-Friedy believes that we need to change our lives through oral
kits to the aspiring dental hygienists who will enroll in Nicaragua’s
health smile after smile,” she said. “This is part of our commitment
first dental hygiene college track at the Autonomous University of
to the global community.”
Nicaragua (UNAN). The kits include all of the examination and treatment instruments for the student’s entire first year – everything from hand instruments and sharpening kits to instructional DVDs in Spanish. “We’re starting from scratch with the dental hygiene program at UNAN, so this is a huge donation,” said international medical educator Gayle McCombs, RDH, MS, a professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., who coordinated with UNAN to launch the country’s first dental assistant track in 2011. “Every time I go to Nicaragua, I’m in ‘observation mode,’ both when it comes to assessing training needs and determining equipment needs, for where we are now and where we want to be next. The need for v
supplies is ongoing.” Mary Morrison Littleton, Hu-Friedy’s director of Academic Relations said the donation underscored the 100-year-old company’s dedication to global health, and the work of Physicians for Peace.
Yards of Healing
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Gayle McCombs, RDH, MS, a professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., coordinated with UNAN to launch the country’s first dental assistant track in 2011. The program took a significant step forward in November 2011 with the donation of instrument kits from Hu-Friedy Manufacturing Company.
With less than 1 yard of material, A seamstress can create custom-fit compression garments for a burned child. (CRISAQ)
your gift goes 60x further
BASED ON YEARLY AVERAGES PROVIDED BY PARTICIPATING PARTNER SITES.
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Recent Material & Equipment Milestones v
Hospital Beds The donation of mobile hospital beds from Stryker “revolutionized” care at Albert Schweitzer Hospital, a Physicians for Peace partner site in Deschapelles, Haiti, according to Paul Hendershot, the hospital’s coordinator of Materials and Surgical Services. The movable beds made patient transfers easier and safer. The company has also donated stretchers and mattresses to Physicians for Peace, gifts that we’ve put to use at a number of partner sites, including a new burn unit at a hospital in Honduras.
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Burn Compression Garments To serve an estimated 200 new burn patients each year, Fundación Cristiana de Asistencia a Quemados (CRISAQ) in Honduras needs a reliable and consistent supply of compression garments and splinting material, among other resources, from partners like Physicians for Peace. “Our main goal is to make sure our patients have the ability to continue their lives as they had before their burn,” according to Dr. Hilton Trochez and Grazia Bruni, PT, of CRISAQ. “Part of that goal is met by giving (patients) the special attention they need in the precise time they need it.”
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Optical Frames
Photo By: Stephen Katz
Physicians for Peace-Philippines has joined with the World Health Organization to try and eliminate avoidable blindness by 2020, an effort supported by the life-changing donations of eyeglass frames valued at $8 million from Visionworks of America, with 570 retail locations and based in San Antonio, TX in 2012. The donation included children’s lenses which were critical to the launch of a new Seeing Clearly for Children initiative to train school teachers to catch early warning signs of impaired vision in their students. Additional support came from Irvine, CA-based VonZipper, whose team members hand-delivered donated eyeglass frames this year as part of the new initiative. v
O & P Equipment Kevin Carroll, MS, CP, FAAOP, Vice President of Prosthetics for Hanger Inc. (pictured standing to the right) led a Physicians for Peace team in July 2012 to the Philippines. Hanger Inc. offices around the nation donate high quality O&P equipment, much of which is shipped to the Philippines for use in fabricating new prostheses for amputees.
GalA Highlights Our Seventh Annual Gala in Norfolk, Va., brought together hundreds to support medical education in underserved areas. Thank you to the sponsors and donors on Facebook to see pictures from the event, highlights from our annual awards program and videos showcasing the work of our Medical Diplomat Award winners.
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Dr. Donald Buckley, Chairman of the Board, Laurie Harrison, Development Director-Special Events and Dr. Edward Karotkin, M.D. Immediate Past Chairman of Physicians for Peace
Photo By: Mary Goldburg
who invested in the evening, and to each and every supporter. Visit us online or
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500 East Main Street, Suite 900, Norfolk VA 23510
Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID Norfolk, VA Permit No. 2015
Send One. Train Many. Heal the World. Would you like to give online? Visit our website: www.physiciansforpeace.org