KC Haiti Medical Mission
April 23 – May 1st

Within it … is a group of powerful change makers: Kansas City doctors, surgeons, anesthesia providers, nurses, technicians and a cadre of those trained in the medical field, including those “not-previously-medical type” volunteers, helping Haiti one life at a time, giving hope and a better future to those struggling to live in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Dr. William White, Lee Summit, MO, is joined by 45+ dedicated people using their gifts of time, skills and money for Haitians. KC CREW (KC Commercial Real Estate Women) recently donated 69 lbs. of over-the-counter medicine for children for me to take on my recent trip to Haiti as part of Dr. White’s team.

Dr. White’s trips are scheduled a year in advance. This trip was planned for February 11-20th. The earthquake damage caused airport closure until February 19th. The new dates created scheduling conflicts, resulting in some members of the team to travel to Haiti over a 3 week -period. During 4 ½ days, led by Dr. White’s eye team, the results were: 870 eye exams; 200 laser treatments; 122 incisional surgeries, mostly cataract surgeries; 20 of which were on kids. 

“It is the individual stories that show the life changing depth of what The Lord used us as a team to accomplish. One of my greatest joys has been seeing patients return on subsequent years to have their second eye surgery performed or a YAG laser procedure preformed to polish their lens implant,” adds Dr. Andrew Moyes.

Our team was loaded with subspecialists from almost every Ophthalmic discipline: two cornea, two oculoplastic, one glaucoma, one pediatric and one neuro-ophthalmologist, one general ophthalmologist and one optometrist, enabling us to provide a level of tertiary specialty eye care that is very uncommon in Haiti. 

A young child with bilateral retinoblastoma had her first surgery in Haiti and plans are being made for her chemotherapy at St Jude’s in Memphis.

Two corneal transplants were done. One for a young woman from Port au Prince that was so elated with her results on her first post-operative day that she wants to know how soon the second eye can have surgery.

Two glaucoma surgeries that may have never before been done in Haiti will give a young child a chance to have vision and hopefully will protect a 36 year old woman from losing her only remaining eye to the devastation of glaucoma. 

One of the most touching things to many of us was the number of children that were able to be served, mainly thanks to the skill and expertise of our Pediatric ophthalmologist, anesthesiologist and anesthetists.

We’re talking vision for a life time, and please keep in mind that blindness in Haiti is often lethal. 
If you can’t see, you can’t work and you don’t eat…not to mention that your family members may steal your food. This is profound stuff that we’re in the middle of here.

“Dr. Moyes and I really head the team together and are Co-Leaders per se. He oversees the operating room while we are in country and I oversee the clinic. I tend to get more of the administrative duties and he develops our in country connections. I usually refer to the group as the iTeam just so the moniker stands out and people tend to remember it a little better.”  (Dr. White)

My vision for the iTeam (got to love the pun!) is as follows:

1. That we will continue to work in partnership with our Haitian ophthalmology colleagues: Drs. Hudicourt and Marcellus to learn from each other with the goal of increasing the level and extent of care provided by Haitian doctors.  This is the real key to eliminating treatable blindness in Haiti. 
2. We will continue to be able to provide high volume, excellent quality cataract surgery to the people of the Northwest Zone of Haiti. 
3. We need to increase our public out reaches of vision / glaucoma screening through the affiliated churches throughout the NW zone. There are a lot more blind people that could be helped, glaucoma blindness that could be postponed and Vitamin A deficiency loss of sight and life that could be prevented.   
4. We will continue to be a referral resource for specialty care. This year we saw patients referred to us from all over the island: Port au Prince, southern Haiti and even one young boy with cataracts from the Dominican Republic.      

Written By:
Shirley K. Harpool, CCIM
Varnum/Armstrong/Deeter LLC

Shirley (far left) with Dr. Sheila Alton and her daughters	Shirley (far left) with Dr. Sheila Alton and her daughters
KC Medical Team (left to right): Dr. Scott Hickman, Dr. Andy Blatt, Dr. Scott Murphy, Dr. Bill White and Dr. Greg Wesbster	Haitian girl holding donated teddy bear
Haitian woman holding pan of rice	Haitian children at play
Healing inside and out	Held closely
Melissa Curtice is a nurse midwife. She is also the assistant medical director of the mission and runs the birthing center in PortaPrince.	Post Op: that is a smile of successful recovery!
Prepping for surgery	Surgery Team