NEWSPEACE
Send One. Train Many. Heal the World.
A newsletter from Physicians for Peace.
First Quarter | 2012
DO YOU HAVE A HIGH RES. VERSION OF THIS PHOTO?
Beyond Disability PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE CELEBRATES 12 YEARS OF HELPING PEOPLE WALK, RUN AND THRIVE.
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ravel from Port-au-Prince to Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti, and you’ll pass children on their way to school, new buildings along the road and, at the hospital, Haitian staff providing care and comfort to patients. The sights signal important advances for Haitians recovering from the country’s humanitarian crises, said Mary Kwasniewski, senior director of Global Health Programs. “The work in Haiti remains ‘beautifully hard’ – a phrase coined by one of our physical therapists – but there is a sense of rebuilding, as communities and families come back together,”
Kwasniewski said. “At our partner sites, 2012 is the year that Haitians take control.” Two years after Haiti’s devastating earthquake – and a year after a significant cholera outbreak – Haitian healthcare providers are stepping into key roles at Physicians for Peace (PFP) partner sites in both Deschapelles and Port-au-Prince. The management shift from foreign workers to Haitians is a crucial “next step” in PFP program plans in Haiti – one that will help ensure Haitians are prepared to meet their own long-term healthcare needs. STORY CONTINUES ON PAGE 2
The 2010 earthquake caused injuries requiring some 4,000 amputations in Haiti.
Photo By: Roberto Westbrook
THIS IS A LOW RESOLUTION PHOTO
CEO Message Dear Friends, Happy New Year! In this special issue of NewsPeace, we’re highlighting Walking Free, our signature program for rehabilitation. Dr. Charles Horton Sr., Dr. David Young and David Lawrence, MSPT, ATC, created the program in 2000 to address the needs of patients in Turkey. Today, we’re also delivering care, training and resources through the program in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines. The World Health Organization estimates that 15 percent of the world’s population has a disability. Of these 1 billion people, about 155 million face significant challenges in functioning. Disability is an issue that disproportionately affects poor nations: more than 80 percent of debilitating conditions occur in developing regions. When people struggle with a disability, they can’t work, go to school or contribute fully to their communities. Through Walking Free, Physicians for Peace gives patients the care they deserve and healthcare providers the resources and training they need to serve their communities, now and into the future. I also want to review some of the major highlights from the past year in all of our core programs. In 2011, Physicians for Peace deployed 159 volunteers on 48 missions. With your help, we mobilized more than $8.7 million in materials and supplies. Because of you, people around the world have a better chance to live a happier, healthier life. KEY HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE YEAR INCLUDE: Strengthened Partnerships Q In Haiti, we continued working through the Haitian Amputee Coalition at the Hanger Clinic in Deschapelles, and both the Major League Baseball Players Trust Association and ChildFund International awarded PFP significant grants. The ChildFund investment provided us an opportunity to reach out to longtime partners at Healing Hands for Haiti and St. Vincent’s Center for Handicapped Children, as well as new friends at the Red Thread Promise to coordinate a camp for children with disabilities in January 2012. Q In Nicaragua, we trained more than 40 healthcare professionals from five Central American countries on a joint mission with ReSurge International. By bringing together professionals in one location, patients around Latin America benefitted from advances in burn care treatment. Q While still delivering care and education to hundreds of patients and healthcare providers, PFP-Philippines strategically realigned its Seeing Clearly program to support VISION 2020, a World Health Organization initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness. By working on shared objectives, we’re facilitating international collaboration and ensuring fewer people suffer from impaired vision.
Q In Bolivia, we elevated the skills of in-country teams, introduced new techniques and provided material support. The mission built upon an e tablishe commitment: since 2005, we’ve helped provide better, safer surgical care to young Bolivians suffering from debilitating reproductive and urinary system disorders. Q In association with the United Nation’s Millennium Villages Project, we trained more than 60 traditional birth attendants in Pampaida, Nigeria. That training followed missions in 2009 and 2010, and allowed us to benchmark progress. Q 2011 saw the expansion of our Burn Care program, with new initiatives in the Philippines and the West Bank. Q In the Dominican Republic, we continue to provide support and assistance to prosthetic and orthotictechnician students as they trained through a distance learning certification program with Don Bosco University in El Salvador. A similar program should launch in Haiti this year. New Initiatives Q With ODU, the ORPHANetwork in Virginia Beach, Va., and Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in León, we led efforts to start a first-of-its-kind dental assistant program in Nicaragua. We’re also working with UNAN and ODU to assess Nicaragua’s dental hygiene needs. Combined, these efforts will provide a pathway to sustainable livelihoods for dental professionals and improve care. Q In Honduras, we worked alongside host country professionals to fabricate the first transparent face mask for a burn victim. The technique significantly reduces scarring for patients, reducing both the physical and emotional pain of wounds. Q A Fact Find in Mali, documented the need for a blood banking initiative that will benefit mothers, babies and surgical patients. Q PFP Board Chairman Dr. Ed Karotkin led a Fact Find to Kochi, India, the sister city of Norfolk, Va. Since 2007, we’ve deployed four missions to India. These missions have laid the groundwork for expanded efforts in India.
Q We worked with partners in the Philippines to launch Paradise Heights, a residential community center offering vision, dental, prosthetic, orthotic and rehabilitation services. Q Through a partnership with Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, we began deploying surgeons on 3-month rotations to support a surgical training program in Malawi, an effort that we’ll expand on in 2012. Q We mobilized teams to present workshops and share information at seven international conferences specific to our core program areas, including a Burn Care conference in Mexico.
Last year also brought changes in our leadership. We’re excited to welcome four new members to our board – Dr. Donald Peck Leslie of the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Gary Boswick, CFP, of Bank of America in Norfolk, Trey Oglesby of KPMG in Norfolk and Dr. Olurotimi “Timi” Badero, an interventional cardiologist and interventional nephrologist at Central Mississippi Medical Center. With the help of board director and The Virginian-Pilot publisher Maurice Jones, we also started our first Marketing and Communications Advisory Committee. The group already has provided valuable insight to our Communications strategies. As always, I want to say a special thank you to our donors and friends. We saw many of you at events in 2011– including an open house in downtown Charlottesville, Va. – and in Norfolk at one of three memorable gatherings: our annual gala, a roof top party hosted by former board director Morgan Davis of TowneBank and a Moroccan night on the waterfront hosted by restaurateur Omar Boukhriss. If you believe in our mission to transform lives through education, we invite you to host an event in your hometown. For information on how to become more involved, please contact our Development Department at info@physiciansforpeace.org or 757.625.7569. Thank you for all that you do for Physicians for Peace.
Sincerely,
Signature
Q In the Philippines, the Prosthetic and Orthotic School inaugurated its first class through the University of the East. The school is the first program of its kind in the country, and it will ensure that Filipino healthcare professionals are trained to help members of their own community.
Brig. Gen. Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.) President and CEO
JANUARY 8-14 Port-au-Prince, Haiti
FEBRUARY 6 - APRIL 7 Blantyre, Malawi
FEBRUARY 19-24 Guatemala City, Guatemala
MARCH 9-11 Cebu, Philippines
JANUARY 22-29 Guayaquil, Ecuador
FEBRUARY 12-20 Bicol, Philippines
FEBRUARY 28 - MARCH 5 Manila, Philippines
MARCH 11-17 Managua, Nicaragua
FEBRUARY 4-11 Moca, Dominican Republic
FEBRUARY 18-22 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
MARCH 3-10 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 1
Beyond Disabilitycontinued PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE CELEBRATES 12 YEARS OF HELPING PEOPLE WALK, RUN AND THRIVE. Since the earthquake in Haiti, PFP has deployed 39 physical therapists to the Hanger Amputee Clinic at Albert Schweitzer Hospital and supported partners with shipments of goods and equipment, including mobility devices and hospital beds. During two-week missions, PFP provided direct care to patients and worked alongside Haitians, including O&P technicians, to deliver training. For Sue Klappa, PT, PhD, of Minnesota, her first mission to the clinic was about“building the scaffolding for collaboration” among providers. On a follow-up mission last spring, the progress was clear. “I saw (everyone) working together,” she said. “The technicians were taking on a more active, leadership role.” This year, PFP will mobilize follow-up missions for targeted training, but a Haitian physical therapist will take over much of the rehabilitation work. “As U.S. citizens, we need to be aware globally,” Klappa said. “It’s not true that we have to give up something to give things to others. It doesn’t take a lot to change society.” The New Year also brings an increased focus on team approaches to care. The Hanger Clinic already has broadened its services to include orthotics, and in Port-au-Prince, PFP partner Healing Hands for Haiti will train Haitian rehabilitation nurses. In fact, all of PFP’s partners in Haiti – including St. Vincent’s Center for Handicapped Children and the Catholic Medical Mission Board – maintain staffs that are predominantly Haitian, meaning that the services, education and salaries these partners provide stay in Haiti. Y
“Baby B” was trapped in earthquake rubble for six days. He learned to walk on his first prosthetic leg at the Hanger Clinic in June.
REACHING THOSE IN GREATEST NEED In the Philippines, the Walking Free program has entered a new phase – moving far beyond prosthesis delivery alone, said volunteer director Dr. Penny Bundoc, one of PFP’s 2011 Medical Diplomat Award Winners. For eight years, Bundoc and her team have been working to serve patients with disabilities – a daunting task in a nation made up of more than 7,000 islands. To reach patients, PFP-Philippines teams have engaged a wide variety of techniques, using smart phone technology, for instance to transmit information from rural areas back to a centralized location. The team is also working closely with partners to open satellite centers around the country, so that people with disabilities don’t have to travel as far to receive care. The biggest challenge, however, according to Bundoc, is to make sure that people with disabilities have opportunities to be part of a larger community. “The real essence of assisting people with disabilities toward functional independence and economic empowerment is by providing them avenues towards community reintegration, inclusion and participation once they have been provided with prostheses,” Bundoc said. Y
Patients will also benefit from the opening in 2011 of a landmark prosthetic and orthotic school–a low-cost, high tech education and research center, and the first school of its kind in the Philippines.
Functional independence and reintegration into society are two major goals for the Walking Free program in the Philippines.
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RAISING THE LEVEL OF PROFESSIONALISM PFP has supported Dominican partners and their efforts to improve care for people with disabilities since 2001. Over the years, that support has taken many forms: in 2006, for instance, Catholic University in Santo Domingo graduated its first class of physical therapists. PFP and Old Dominion University helped the school develop the curriculum for that inaugural group. The program is still thriving. PFP also works with Dominican technicians enrolled in a distancelearning program through Don Bosco University in El Salvador. The program ensures that techs are trained and qualified at a professional level, one that’s internationally recognized, so that they can earn a living and support the needs of patients in their communities, without outside intervention. “Working with these students is incredibly rewarding,” said Gilberto Mejia, CP, of Richmond, Va., a PFP volunteer since 2002. “Through the program, they’re expanding their knowledge, so that they understand why we do things a certain way.” That long-view approach is what initially attracted David Lawrence, MSPT, ATC, of Richmond, Va., to PFP, and it’s a reason he’s remained dedicated the organization – and the people of the Dominican Republic – for the past 12 years. “Rehabilitation is a lifetime commitment, you can’t parachute in and leave,” Lawrence said. “When we started in the Dominican Republic, we were going into a country where there were no certified licensed physical therapists or prosthetists. Through education, we are creating a model of aid that is sustainable.” Gail Grisetti, PT, EdD, of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. agrees. In addition to training Dominican therapists and contributing to curriculum development, Grisetti coordinates an annual educational exchange with students from her graduatelevel courses – an effort that has opened American students’ eyes to the challenges of therapy in an international context. “We want our students to become culturally competent and to demonstrate understanding and compassion,” Grisetti said. “This is one excellent way to do that.”
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In the Dominican Republic, Physicians for Peace has helped train physical therapists and O&P techs, like Alan Ney Mendez.
Physicians for Peace transforms lives by training, supporting and empowering healthcare professionals working with the world’s underserved populations. 3
Faces from the Field A child kicks a soccer ball. A young woman returns to college. A grandmother walks with her grandchild. These are the stories of Physicians for Peace. You can find more stories on our Website, but we invite you to celebrate two recent success stories:
Walking Free Timeline 2000
Under the leadership of Drs. Charles Horton Sr. and David Young and David Lawrence, PT, PFP deploys its first Walking Free mission to Turkey.
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Carlos Luis Jimenez is one of the O&P technicians in the Dominican Republic currently participating – with PFP’s support – in a distance-learning program through Don Bosco University. Once they graduate, the techs will provide valuable services to people with disabilities throughout the country.
More than 35 Haitian children with disabilities ran, played and created one-of-a-kind art projects in January at Camp Jake, a project Physicians for Peace supported through new and established partnerships in Haiti and the U.S.
HERE ARE SOME KEY DATES FROM THE WALKING FREE PROGRAM HISTORY:
2001
Program launches in the Dominican Republic. Today, PFP partners with sites in both Santiago and Santo Domingo.
2004
Wlaking Free expands to the Philippines, under the leadership of Dr. Josephine “Penny” Bundoc. That program will later win accolades for its innovative use of technology.
SUPPORTER Spotlight Sobering images of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti convinced Christine Tippery to become a monthly donor to PFP. But the mother of two didn’t stop there. She also enlisted the matching support of her employer, Takeda Pharmaceuticals. By doing so, she increased the value of her investment and made a lasting commitment to healthcare education. “I saw right after the earthquake the work that PFP was doing, and knew that supporting this organization was the right thing to do,” Tippery said. For information on how you can set up a matching or monthly gift, contact PFP’s Development Department at (757) 625-7569 or info@physiciansforpeace.org.
“It is very gratifying to know that there are people like you who are always thinking of the well-being of lower income people with disabilities…we greatly appreciate the solidarity you have with our institution.” — Edilecta Martinez de Ho, PFP Partner Patronato Center of Rehabilitation Santiago, Dominican Republic
Sponsorship opportunities are available for our 2012 Gala in October. Contact Laurie Harrison, lharrison@physicianforpeace.org
2006
The first class of physical therapists graduates from Catholic University in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic. Under the leadership of Gail Grisetti, PT, EdD, PFP helped Catholic develop curriculum for that program.
2010
A 7.0 earthquake hits Haiti. While estimates vary, experts believe that the disaster caused some 4,000 amputations. PFP becomes a founding member of the Haitian Amputee Coalition and begins deploying physical therapists to the Hanger Clinic.
MOVING FORWARD
By raising the standards of care, we’re improving people’s lives. Today, and in the future, we’ll continue to work through partnerships that facilitate educational opportunities in all aspects of rehabilitation. 5
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