Northwell sends volunteer team to Ecuador for pro bono surgeries

Amelia Camurati
A team of Northwell Health surgeons and nurses visited Ecuador for 10 days to perform pro bono surgeries for infants with cleft palates. (Photo courtesy of Northwell Health)

A group of Northwell Health employees spent more than a week in Ecuador over the winter, performing surgeries and assisting the local physicians and staff with learning new procedures and techniques.

Surgeons, nurses, physicians and physician assistants from three Northwell Health hospitals traveled to Ecuador in January to perform pro bono surgeries on 46 patients. (Photo courtesy of Northwell Health)

Dr. Gene Coppa said the group of 20 volunteers from Long Island Jewish Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital and Staten Island University Hospital spent Jan. 21 through 26 in Quito, Ecuador, teaching and performing laparoscopic hernia repairs and cleft lip and palates correction surgeries at Hospital Padre Carollo.

Coppa said the hospital is part of the Foundation of Tierra Nueva, which focuses care on indigent populations.

“It’s a pretty common thing for surgeons to donate their time, but the question is what’s the long-term effect of your visit,” Coppa said. “If you go down for a week and come back with very little impact, you haven’t helped the problems there.”

Coppa said during the 10-day trip, the group performed surgeries on 46 patients, 20 children and 26 adults through the Northwell Surgical Service Line Global Health Initiative, which sends teams regularly to different countries to teach and help.

“What we consider a pretty simple operation for them is truly a life-changing thing,” Coppa said.

Twenty volunteers from the Northwell Health system spent 10 days in Ecuador teaching and performing procedures. (Photo courtesy of Northwell Health)

Coppa was joined by Dr. Rafael Barrera, Dr. Charles Choy, Dr. Victor Moon, Dr. David Hoffman, Christopher Johnson, Jen Yang, Julissa Ramos, Nicole Afonso, Binna P. Bae, Dr. Khang Nguyen, Nicole Passione, Irisi Papapavllo, Dr. Heather McMullen and Dr. Paul Grube.

Coppa said the hospital lacked or had a limited number of some supplies, so volunteers had to improvise to provide the same patient safety they would provide at Northwell.

Foam cups were used as makeshift face tent masks, and masking tape was used in place of safety straps for patients on the operating table.

Northwell Health volunteers used a local grocery store like a supply closet, looking for sterilization and other supplies. (Photo courtesy of Northwell Health)

During the surgeries, Coppa said they often had two patients in the same operating room, which is unusual in the United States.

Volunteers also purchased gallons of bleach from a local grocery store to disinfect the operating rooms.

Coppa said all the young patients — and some of the adults — went home with small stuffed animals and toys donated by a volunteer.

Coppa said the group worked together to achieve its goal and maintain patient safety, such as nurses and physician assistants doing the work typically done by a sterilization machine in the United States, disinfecting and packaging surgical instruments alongside the Hospital Padre Carollo staff.

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