Lutheran HealthCare's Medical Mission
Andrea Kerr is a frequent contributor to Advance. With the help of Michael Paras, she will provide readers with daily updates on Lutheran HealthCare's medical mission work in Tela, Honduras.
About 20 Lutheran HealthCare volunteers arrived in Honduras this weekend; they'll be in the city of Tela until April 26th providing medical care and free reconstructive surgeries in the medically underserved region.
They are there on behalf of the New York Honduran Committee, which began medical mission trips in 1999. The group, headed by Brooklyn's LHC Trauma Center surgeon Mohan Kilaru, M.D., consists of surgeons, nurses, physician assistants, technicians, and speech/language/hearing experts.
The volunteers will first focus on providing life-saving surgeries for children at a local hospital in Tela. As one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere (second only to Haiti), the region's children suffer from a high rate of childhood illnesses that are often left uncared for. Over the past two years the group has examined more than 790 patients and performed close to 100 medical procedures.
In addition to paying their own expenses the volunteers have raised much needed money to purchase medical supplies and gifts for the local children. Sponsors include the LHC Medical and Dental staff who donated $2,500, and Chief of Orthopedic Trauma Thomas Lyon, M.D., who donated $1,000 to support the medical mission's efforts.
We'll provide daily updates and photographs to Advance readers as we receive reports from the team's photographer, Michael Paras. So, hold onto your laptops because this team works at lightening speed to see as many patients as possible throughout the day!