Merry Christmas

I returned from Shisong on December 4 and will return there early in 2016.  We were able to complete 12 open heart surgeries in addition to those congenital operations performed by the San Donato Mission in November.  Our patient population remains extremely dependent on external sponsorship to make surgery available for poor patients.  I am particularly grateful to Fr. Herald Brock of Franciscan Mission Outreach and the team from Mi-Do for their commitment to fundraising to sponsor patients who need non-congenital heart surgery.  Please see below for our current group of patients awaiting funding and if you are among my readers who pray, pray for us and these patients.

Franciscan Mission Outreach December 2015 Activity Report View this email in your browser FMO 2015 CAMEROON CHRISTMAS APPEAL HONDURAS: Aug 4 - Sep 5 and Nov 3 - Dec 3, 2015 There’s always a lot going on in Honduras when Fr. Herald is there: Masses, Confessions, Annointings, First Communions, retreats and talks to different groups (Christian Family Movement, married couples, children and youth, lay missionaries, Catholic University students and personnel), mission visits to outlying communities… All with the goal of building up the Body of Christ in this mission setting. UPCOMING EVENTS: 5-9 Dec 2015: Parish Mission, Corpus Christi, South River, NJ  2-9 Jan 2016: Friar Suppliers Haiti Mission Trip 20 Jan-11 Feb 2016: Honduras 13-17 Feb 2016: Parish Mission, St. Faustina, Clermont, FL 20-24 Feb 2016: Parish Mission, St. Louis, Alexandria, VA 27 Feb - 2 Mar 2016: Parish Mission, St. Anthony, S. Pines, NC 20-24 Mar 2016: Jesús en la Playa, Honduras Our missionary efforts depend on your spiritual and financial support. Please pray for us! Tax-deductible donations to support the life, ministries and missionary outreach of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal can be made online by clicking on the link below: Donations can also be made by check to the order of : “Franciscan Mission Outreach” and sent to : Franciscan Mission Outreach  PO Box 1086  Secaucus, NJ 07096-1086  *Please indicate if your donation is intended for Cameroon. Tel:  718-618-4511 Fax: 201-667-2801  Thank you! You are in our prayers! Facebook Share Forward

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Africa is Not a Country, continued and 100 cases

The Cardiac Centre is hoping to complete 100 cardiac operations this year.  Approximately half of these will have been completed by the teams from Europe and Mozambique that provide congenital cardiac surgery, with a large proportion of funding from Cuore Fratello and other groups.  The remainder are “adult cases”, meaning not congenital although many of the patients are young people, with rheumatic disease, performed by the local team and visiting anesthesiologists.  This year Dr. Maurizio Meme was here for 6 months and together with Dr. Charles Mvondo and the local team completed approximately 36 cases.  I was here in February and will be here until December.  Dr. Italo Milocco was here in January and September, working with the Mozambique team while Dr. Mvondo sought additional education and training in Leuven, Belgium.  We have completed 5 cases and the first patient was discharged on Friday on post-op day 10. (See photo below with the patient next to Dr. Charles in the center).  The Italian mission team from San Donato will arrive next week and we expect them to complete 13-15 cases.  We have patients in the ward awaiting treatment of conditions not related to their cardiac conditions before proceeding with their cardiac operations.  Unlike in the US, it is difficult to fully evaluate patients before they arrive for their operations.  They often come from long distances and are unable to incur the expense of pre-operative evaluation until the procedure is actually scheduled.  This means that unexpected findings lead to delays in proceeding with surgery.  “Unexpected findings” can include something as simple as a rare blood type, meaning that we are unlikely to have the patient’s blood type readily available and need to seek it locally or import it from the cities.
 

Working with Dr. Charles for the 6 month period beginning in October is Dr. Marta Pugliese, a cardiothoracic surgery resident from Rome.  Below you see Dr. Mvondo discussing a complex aortic case with the team and Dr. Pugliese displaying her notes resulting from that discussion.
 

 

I came across this reflection from a Ugandan journalist titled “Why I Cannot Tell the African Story.”  She describes the many situations of Africa and how they cannot be distilled into a brief summary.  Even within the US we have various cultures, economic scenarios, and even languages.  How much more so in Africa!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34508552
 
Sunday November 1 was All Saints Day.  The Gospel reading included what we call the Beatitudes:

THE BEATITUDES
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.  Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
 

Next time I would like to share some updates on the Lifebox program (www.Lifebox.org).

Home Sweet Home

Greetings from Shisong and my apologies for being so delinquent about posting to this blog!

I arrived in Shisong on October 8 after leaving Rochester on the 5th.   There have been some delays in performing surgery, so I have been catching up on other work and projects.  Sr. Jethro was in the US over the summer making connections with Cameroonians here and with Americans interested in the work of the Cardiac Centre.  We were talking by phone and she laughed when she accidentally referred to me coming “home” to Shisong.  In many ways, though, it is another home for me.

I arrived near the end of the rainy season.  It is lovely to see everything so green.  There are some students from the north of Italy and I went with them to the waterfall which I show below with much water!  In the picture are Gonas Mayr and Alicia Adajar-Duante.  Alicia is a Lay Mission Helper; she is a critical care nurse from California who will be here at the Cardiac Centre for three years.  Her blog is here: http://aliciaincameroon.blogspot.com/
 

 

 

While I was preparing to return to Cameroon, I was working on preparing several responsibilities that I have in Rochester for me to be able to manage long-distance or for others to be able to manage.  In the midst of this, I came across this story describing a tremendous act of generosity.  So many of the stories about troubled areas describe acts of unspeakable cruelty or at best stories of indifference to suffering.  Yet among the poor and struggling, generous acts like this occur daily.  It is good for us to be inspired (and humbled) by stories like this.  (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/young-nurse-adopts-newborn-he-had-no-one-else/)  This man encountered a dying woman and her newborn son.  He only owed them medical care, and for that they were rapidly transferred elsewhere, yet responded by offering the baby a family.  Nurses who are employed in Sierra Leone might be financially better off than some others, but they are hardly wealthy.  Anyone in a community such as his that has any money is instantly tapped to support many others.  It is acts such as this that remind me that I have much more to give.

February 2015

I arrived here in Shisong on February 1, and had a couple of days to relax and see people since the surgeon, Dr. Charles Mvondo, had to be at an appointment in Italy.  We began operations on Wednesday, February 4 and the work has been steady.  In the past, some people have suggested that I say more about the patients that we care for.  I have been reluctant to say much about my patients due to their right to confidentiality and privacy.  Some of the patients have agreed to have their pictures posted on the Cardiac Centre website and I have referred people there for more specifics.  However, as readers of this blog have seen, this year there was a very successful fundraiser for sponsorship of several patients.  Mi-Do (www.Mi-Do.org), run by the amazing team of Dr. Claudia von Lutterotti and Andrea Maria Zeller, has been incredibly successful at raising sponsorship funds since their inception a little over a year ago.  Fr. Herald Joseph Brock, CFR, with Franciscan Mission Outreach (https://www.facebook.com/franciscanmissionoutreach), joined forces with them prior to Christmas to advance fundraising in the US for this very special project.

Donations to this project can still be made at either of the above sites or here:  http://www.youcaring.com/nonprofits/a-heart-for-cameroon/262505


These are the patients that were listed for the FMO/Mi-Do fundraiser.

I met all of these patients here during this trip, and we were able to operate on several of them, and the others will be cared for by the congenital team next week.  I am frequently inspired by my patients, particularly here in Shisong.  These patients are very happy to be having their operations.  One patient the other day was escorted to the OR by two previous patients who were recovering on the ward!  I also witnessed one patient who was in the hospital awaiting the results of her testing prior to surgery sitting with the family of a patient who had died.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of our patients for all of the support and financial gifts.

These post-op patients and guardians (theirs and others) were sitting outside yesterday:

Congress

Saturday was the 2nd Annual Congress of the Cameroon Northwest Anaesthetist Association.  It was well-attended by over 90 anesthetists, theater staff, and nursing students of the hospitals and health centers of the Northwest Region as well as the Western Region.  There was a Lifebox distribution and training program, as well as instruction and training on the WHO Surgery Safety Checklist.  There were also specialty lectures and discussions.  Overall I think this is a successful organization that represents the commitment to excellence and ongoing improvement of Cameroonian nurse anaesthetists.

Globalization of Indifference

Sunday was the First Sunday of Lent and the letter from Pope Francis for Lent, 2015 (“Make your hearts firm,“ Jas 5:8) was presented.  Pope Francis is concerned about what he is calling the “Globalization of Indifference.”  His idea is that when we are healthy and comfortable, we fail to think about those who are suffering.  In America, with the 24/7 News Cycle, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the problems of the world and within our nation, and it is easy to try to push this away and exist in our healthy and comfortable environment.  One way to overcome this sense of feeling overwhelmed is to focus on one or 2 things.  This is not to be indifferent to the rest of the suffering, but to realize that most of us are not in a position to correct all of the world’s injustices – but not to unduly contribute to them either!  Let’s not let the sense that we cannot fix everything lead us to indifference and selfishness so that we do not try to be part of the solution of anything.

The letter can be found here: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/lent/documents/papa-francesco_20141004_messaggio-quaresima2015.html

Happy Lent!

Much Progress with Sponsoring Patients! Please Consider Helping.

Merry Christmas!  I love this season and this year once again am so grateful for many things.  I wanted to show the great work that Fr. Herald and MiDo have done in getting patients their much needed heart surgery in Cameroon.  Below is Fr. Herald's Christmas Newsletter with a link to a donation website.  I will be headed back there in a few weeks and we hope to operate on these patients.

Peace and Happy New Year!

Franciscan Mission Outreach December 2014 Activity Report

 

A HEART FOR CAMEROON
From October 15 to 24 Fr. Herald accompanied US cardiac anesthesiologist Dr. Ellen Dailor (top right) to the Cardiac Centre at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Shisong Cameroon, run by Franciscan Sisters. Dr. Dailor has served several times at this state-of-the-art medical facility - the only one of its kind in Central Africa - and shared her experiences with Fr. Herald. He went to see how Franciscan Mission Outreach might help provide life-saving heart surgery to Cameroonians in need. By God’s providence, Dr. Claudia von Lutterotti and Andrea Maria Zeller (below left, with Fr. Herald) of the European nonprofit Mido - which raises funds for the same purpose - were also visiting at the same time.

Cameroon is a developing country of 22 million, a vast number of whom live in rural areas, survive on what they grow and lack adequate medical care. The average yearly income is under $2000 and life expectancy reaches only into the mid-50s. Cameroon has an extremely high incidence of rheumatic heart disease: 100-200 times higher than in wealthier countries. Rheumatic heart disease (caused by the strep virus) damages heart valves, affects mostly children and young adults and is the most common cause of cardiovascular death in the region. It’s estimated that 40,000 people in Cameroon suffer from this disease.

The Cardiac Centre at St. Elizabeth Hospital has the  advanced capacity to do open-heart valve replacement surgery to treat this disease and save lives. The Centre has a full time, European trained Cameroonian cardiac surgeon, Dr. Charles Mve Mvondo (right), and the staff and technology to provide intensive pre- and post-operative care. When Dr. Dailor is there the surgical team is complete. Though the cost of this surgery in Cameroon ($7000) is only a small fraction of that in the US, it far exceeds the means of almost everyone there who needs it. Nearly 100 patients unable to pay are on a waiting list for surgery.

That’s where Franciscan Mission Outreach comes in. We are working with the Live Greater Foundation to match donations from Mido and cosponsor patients for heart surgery at which Dr. Dailor will attend as anesthesiologist. We are endeavoring to make sure this amazing Cardiac Centre functions at full capacity for the benefit of the poor. Our goal is to raise $25,000 to give seven Cameroonians in need the Christmas gift of free heart surgery.

Please help us in this effort to save a life!
Visit: www.youcaring.com/fmo-h4c