Haiti

Last year, with generous donor funding, Real Medicine Foundation was able to provide specialized orthopaedic care for 20 children and adults who were desperate for treatment of their post-traumatic or congenital ailment, which was preventing them from thrivingor taking care of responsibilities and their families’ needs.

This year, after a very successful first program and very good results, we are following up with another group of 20 patients, currently incapable of enjoying normal lives as children or starting a meaningful professional life as young adults.

While never losing sight of our main goal, which is to significantly and efficiently improve accessibility to secondary and tertiary quality care by establishing specialized referral hubs for low and no income patients through a public private partnership with renowned and willing healthcare facilities, we are continuing with this effort of targeting specific orthopaedic cases requiring specialized treatment.

While limited and one of the very few options for the Haitian patients in need of advanced care, desperately seeking with little recourse, specialized procedures and treatment in a struggling public healthcare system, we are thus trying to contribute in the medical panorama currently available, in improving their livelihood and procure them with means and dispositions to be a more productive and healthy part of this nation’s developing work force.

Help us help them…..and help us establish a better access to quality care for all Haitians.

Here are a few of the patients benefiting from our surgical care this year:

Olney CYPRIEN

This little 3 year old boy has been afflicted with a severe lower limb deformity, resulting from a proximal tibia tumor, preventing him from going to school or even enjoying a play with friends.

Significant incurring deviation is progressively becoming more prominent and, as associated growth complications, also becoming more visible, such as an overgrowth of the femur on the affected side.

Olney desperately needs surgical treatment in order to be able to have as close as a normal childhood as possible and start to thrive.

Widlène CHARITABLE

Widlène is a 12 year old girl with severe knee deformity, pushing them apart and making ambulation close to impossible.

Her condition at this stage needs aggressive surgical treatment to correct the deviation of her lower limbs  and allow her to thrive adequately.

Procedures in both limbs, either at the same time or distant from each other, are required to reestablish satisfactory gait and ambulation. 

Gladina ESTIVERNE

This 16 year old young girl suffered from a dislocated elbow + probable distal Humerus fracture which was not properly addressed in her home provincial town.

This lack of adequate treatment incurred a fixed elbow deformity, preventing her from using efficiently her dominant upper limb.

Reestablishment of a satisfactory joint mobility constitutes our goal in order to improve her functionality and professional future.

Frantz ORVIL

This young man was the victim of an electrocution which produced a severely burned left upper limb and right hand and wrist in 2012.

Treatments in his provincial town failed to save his left limb, which had to be amputated and left him with significant scarring in his right hand.

Expected to become a bread earner for his family, he is now even incapable to be of any use since his remaining hand lacks the basic grasping capacity…Providing him with a more functional remaining limb is our goal.

Withaud EGALITÉ

This young 14 year old boy is afflicted with bilateral deviation on both his legs, impeding normal gait and ambulation, as well as participation in physical activities.

This progressive condition has continued to worsen over the years and as there remains a few years of growth capacity, a bilateral stapling and uni-compartmental growth arrest is scheduled to correct this deviation. 

Whitaud has plans of being able to provide for his family and wants to be able to enjoy the sports he likes but is incapable of practicing without pain and limitation.

Rachel JUSTABLE

Rachel was a young working girl at one of Pétion-Ville’s most prestigious hotels and late March sustained a severe open fracture in a motor vehicle accident on her way to work on a taxi motorcycle.

Even though she had a good job, she could not afford private care and had to resort to NGO ran public care, with a resulting non-union of her tibia fracture. She has been out of work for that time and as one of her family’s main provider, her siblings and mother have trouble getting by.

Permanent treatment for her non-union is mandatory to allow her the possibility of returning to a productive life.

Christy TORCHON

At 12 years of age, Christy is already showing signs of early growth cartilage closure and with this left deformity will less likely benefit from conservative procedures.

Already impaired by this condition, she suffers from limited functionality, with pain upon exertion.

In order to improve her gait and ambulation, as well as her overall appearance, a corrective osteotomy is envisioned to re-align her lower limb and definitely fix this abnormality.

Stevancia DEJUSTE

Stevancia was afflicted with a very aggressive tumor affecting both her femur and tibia with gross deviation and shortening.

Through generous donor funding, RMF was able to have an accurate diagnosis of her benign tumors and a temporary tibia growth arrest was done with epiphysis plating.

While her angulation has started to improve, attention to her length discrepancy is now contemplated to further lessen her overall gait and function.

Stevenson FRANÇOIS

Stevenson was 16 years old and part of the first group we operated on in September of last year, he had a significant bowing of both knees and a correction osteotomy was accomplished successfully on his left leg.

The same surgery will be done on his right leg to provide him with normally axed lower limbs so that he may enter his productive adult life without this handicap.

Stevenson, even with only one side treated, is already enjoying a more active lifestyle and participating in the sports he loves, like soccer.

Sherley ETIENNE

Sherley was operated on in September of last year for early bone fusion following a knee trauma sustained during the January 2010 earthquake.

Her first procedure with RMF was done to correct the gross angulation deformity in her femur, which has healed completely now.

The goal with a second surgery planned is to now lengthen her affected lower limb to correct the remaining discrepancy and further improve her functionality and overall physical aspect by reestablishing as close as possible normal anatomical structure.