CURRENT NEWSLETTER: AUGUST, 2001 in this issue:

   

All in a Day's Work Recently, eighty children lined up to see four Honduran Socialized Dentists in the small western town of Sensenti. Eight years ago these same dentists had no tools, no vehicles and no real hope of treating these children. Over two weeks this past July we witnessed  these four Honduran dentists, now well equipped with CAMO tools, equipment, supplies and a vehicle, treat more than 1,000  children. The community of Sensenti invited the Honduran dentists with the understanding that the community would provide a place for them to set up their equipment and perform procedures. CAMO also requested that the community raise funds for the fuel and the  food needed by the dentists during their visit. The dentists are proud of the tremendous joint effort. CAMO has entrusted them with needed  resources, and they have produced amazing  results, relieved much pain, and brought  smiles to children's (and parents'!) faces. It's  all in a day's work for them.

Small restaurant in Sensenti, the owner closed the doors to help give space to the mobile dental teams for one week. All of the childrenof Sensenti were treated during this period.

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A second Medical Library, located in the western area of Honduras, is now 75% complete. The facility, located in Hospital Regional de Occidente in Santa Rosa de Copan, will have the most recent books on site, as well as being networked to Spanish  lan-guage medical literature via the internet. CAMO will in-stall computer systems within the library and provide internet links to large medical libraries. In order to provide the most recent information, none of the medical books will be more than five years old.

The structure itself will be completed thanks to donations from the Jack Deloss Taylor Charitable Trust and the International Foundation. The Fort Collins Rotary Club is applying for Share funds through Rotary International, and these funds will be used for shelves, tables, chairs, computers and other modern teaching aids. Several other groups have also expressed interest in helping fund the purchase of new medical books. Education and the tools needed to learn are taken for granted here in the States. But this is not so in a country where even basic medical texts and reference materials are hard to come by.
Hondurans have done all the labor in the construction of this new facility.

TELETON
Audiometry:
Thanks to Mary Rosenbaum-Porath M.A., an Audiologist at University Hospitals of Cleveland, we have received   a $1,500 grant for the further development of a hearing-screening program for children. We will strive to identify and diagnose problems and, if at all possible, prevent further hearing loss. Mary will be going with the team in October to develop the screening program and to identify the resources needed for a successful ongoing program. Since January more than 800 children have been tested, and of those, 56 have been successfully fitted with hearing aids. A whole new world has opened up for these children!

Wheelchair:
Wheels of Hope of Canton, Ohio have done a tremendous job getting us wheelchairs and providing a vital counterpart for us in Honduras. We have been able to ship more than 200 wheelchairs this year, and the program is becoming a positive model for others like it. CAMO and Wheels of Hope believe that we need to look at people as whole and valued beings, all having unique needs, personalities and life situations. For example, a person who is a paraplegic needs more than just a wheelchair. CAMO, Wheels of Hope and Teleton have developed a comprehensive support system in which a social worker, medical doctor and physical therapist all see the patient and attend to his or her varied needs - both physical and emotional. A properly fitted wheelchair is given to the patient along with pastoral counseling and prayer. The medical doctor, physical therapist, social worker and pastor all continue to follow-up with individual care for each patient.

This more personal approach eliminates many problems associated with the massive wheelchair give-aways, in which doctors do not see and know their patients, and the wheelchairs often end up being sold on the black market. Due in part to the success of this program, we have been contacted by Wheels for the World to aid in the development of another wheelchair clinic at the Teleton facility in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. CAMO has met with Teleton, and they have expressed their excitement by pledging space and personnel to this program. We will continue working to see this project come to fruition, moving forward with the same vision of treating the whole patient.

USA Training
Prosthetic technician Jorge Carvajal of Santa Rosa recently finished his training in below-the-knee prosthetics, working with Mark Gorman of Morgantown, West Virginia. The development of the prosthetic clinic in Honduras has been in progress since November 1999. Jorge has been in training since May of 2000 and was brought to the West Virginia to work with Mark June 8 through July 7. Jorge has now returned to Honduras.

CAMO is very pleased to acknowledge the outstanding group of people working on this prosthetic program. While Executive Director Kathy Tschiegg was in Honduras, Jorge made two below-the-knee prosthetics, constructing them with great care and attention to detail. Mark will return to Honduras to personally evaluate all the patients Jorge has equipped, and the two will work together if any improvements are necessary.

Thierry Gontier, Director of Handicap International, remains committed to assisting us with this important development. There are only three prosthetics facilities in Honduras, and all of us are working together for one common cause — helping people to become more mobile. Please remember, if you have an old prosthetic limb in your closet, send it to us. There are many components in an old limb that we can utilize to make a new one. Your old prosthetic can help to provide someone with life-changing mobility!

In the USA:
Here in Ohio, the Kidron Folk Music Festival 2001 chose CAMO as the charity organization to receive funds this year. 380 tickets were sold. The music, which included local talent as well as professional acts, started at 1 p.m., lasted until 11 p.m. A memorable time was had by all - there was even an original song composed for the event and performed live! Andy Hamsher of Orrville donated apple dumplings, a delicious picnic style dinner was catered locally and area Boy Scouts sold drinks and candy. This beautiful summer day brought people from all over the region to the Dan Wesman Farm to enjoy good live music and help CAMO's programs. CAMO would like to thank the entire group of artists, volunteers, sponsors and especially Dan Wesman and family for all their hard work in making the day a rousing success.

Cell Saver Program
Two weeks ago, while I was in Honduras, two patients died in the facility where I was as a result of bleeding to death. This was due to the fact that there was no blood available for transfusion. They might very well be alive today had the Cell Saver been available. The Cell Saver is a simple but powerful idea, and it saves lives. It works in this fashion: blood that otherwise would have been lost is suctioned back into the Cell Saver machine; the red blood cells are separated and washed, then filtered and transfused back into the patient. In addition to providing needed blood, this technology stops the spread of potentially deadly infections such as HIV and Hepatitis because one receives one's own blood. The risk of general infection is greatly decreased - and all of this is at a lower cost to the health system!

Five machines have now been donated to CAMO. We will be doing stateside training from Sept. 28 through Oct. 28 at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Paul Potter, head anesthesiologist at Dunlap Memorial Hospital in Orrville, Ohio, the team leader on this program. We will keep you posted on the progress of this exciting development.

Diagnostic Ultrasound in Public Health Clinic
Our challenge is to acquire good donated ultrasound machines, train personnel in their use and ultimately recuperate enough funds to maintain the machines and the program. Finally, after a lot of hard work, all the pieces are in place. Dr. German Barcenas and Dr. Lourdes Barcenas received training in Ultrasound at SUMMA in Akron, Ohio as well as at the private Clinic of Dr. John Weeman and Dr. Emily Benekos in Wooster, Ohio. The ultrasound machine is now in Honduras and will be installed by Alien Dicks, our biomedical consultant, on Oct 28. The contract with the Honduran Regional Director of Health, which will allow recuperation of funds for the sole use of maintenance of this equipment is to be signed soon. This will be the first prenatal ultrasound machine avai-able for the poor in Honduras! At this time 50% of women have their babies at home in very unsanitary conditions attended only by midwives with little or no training. The greatest cause of death is bleeding and infection. We are striving to bring these women into the public health clinic so we can educate them about the importance of prenatal and postnatal care, to reach out to them before they become another statistic. In addition, we can develop programs to educate them about family planning, nutrition, vaccination and other pressing health issues. Even a little simple knowledge can save lives.
 

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by Michael McClintock
     I mentioned to a Christian Counselor earlier this year that I was looking for organizations to which I could donate some of my time and talents. She told me about CAMO, and after doing some research on my own, I contacted Kathy Tschiegg and set up an appointment. The result of that May 18 meeting was a tentative agreement to take a trip to Honduras with the Mayor ofOrrville, Dennis Steiner and the Mayor ofWooster, Jamie Howey. The purpose of our trip was to meet with the Mayor of Santa Rosa de Copan, Juan Carlos Elvir, and various city officials to discuss development of a Sister City(s) program. The emphasis of the trip, however, was to exchange ideas on operating city governments. The secondary purpose was to possibly develop a smaller scale project to improve the existing city infrastructure. Improvements to one of the few playgrounds in the city — through donated playground equipment or outdoor illumination — were discussed as a possibility. What convinced me during my meeting with Kathy that this could be a worthwhile trip was her absolute insistence that it might not produce anything other than an exchange of ideas. If it went beyond that it had to be collaborative and sustainable. In other words, although the Hondurans are disadvantaged as a people, the majority of them do not want a hand-out; they merely want a helping hand.
     We arrived at San Pedro Sula Airport on July 30 and were met by our driver, Ramiro. Although Ramiro has a limited grasp of the English language, he did have a note from Kathy and the number to her cell phone. After calling and getting directions on how to transfer our money from dollars to Honduran currency and admonishing us to buy some bottled water for the 2 1/2 hour trip to Santa Rosa, we climbed into the CAMO Isuzu Trooper and off we went. What I observed and experienced from that point on affected me more than I ever would have guessed.
     Having never been to an impoverished country, I was totally unprepared for what I encountered. I think two words that best describe what I observed would be "survival mode." So many of the basic amenities, such as clean water, reliable power, proper treatment of sewage, garbage disposal and clean paved streets are minimal at best or simply absent. The frills we take for granted, such as plentiful art and entertainment centers, well-stocked public libraries, mega-stores with any product imaginable, aren't there at all or are relegated to the very largest cities. That's the bad news. Here's the good news. We toured Hospital Regional de Occidente in Santa Rosa on our first day. Initially, I was dismayed at the conditions I saw, making inevitable comparisons to the state-of-the-art facilities we are accustomed to. As the tour progressed my opinion began to change. I saw a kitchen where, until recently, all cooking was done on a wood-burning stove. Now the staff cooks using modern stoves and ovens. I saw a recently completed laundry facility where before, all hospital laundry was washed by hand and laid on a hillside to dry. Now modern, commercial machines are in use. I was shown the various wards and the donated equipment associated with each ward. I entered a children's ward and saw a little girl with thick, black hair sharing a bed with a little boy. They both looked about six years old and I cried because the little girl reminded me of my own six-year-old daughter. The most impressive part of this tour was the people who worked there. They were proud of their facility, and in each ward I witnessed a kind and compassionate staff going about their duties. As the hospital tour progressed, one major theme emerged. All of the improvements I observed came about through the collaborative efforts of CAMO volunteers and the people of Santa Rosa. This philosophy of working together to achieve a goal and sustain the results with local labor was reinforced for the rest of my visit. Our daily itinerary with Juan Carlos and other city employees was filled with group discussions and site visits to the best and the worst the city had to offer. As stated previously, the primary objective was to outline plans for city infrastructure improvements and determine if a sister city program would be beneficial as a vehicle for a transfer of ideas and resources.
     Group meetings with Juan Carlos and City planners focused on immediate challenges. Initiation and enforcement of zoning restrictions and installation and improvement of new and existing infrastructure systems were discussed. Other topics included the need for development of civic pride and citizenship. Noteworthy was their insistence that transparency of government be the focal point of the current and future city administrations. This resolve is probably born of a history of inattentiveness to the needs of the people by both local and federal governments.
     Site visits provided us with graphic illustrations of the challenges that lay ahead. We visited the local trash dump located on a hill overlooking the city. The view of the city and surrounding hills was beautiful. Disturbing, however, was the stench of garbage, the thousands of flies buzzing around, and large buzzards pecking away at the open refuse. More disconcerting than anything else was the sight of a small boy at the base of the cliff picking his way through the trash. Was he looking for food or a play toy? I'll never know. Visits to other parts of the city made obvious how lack of zoning enforcement added to the confusion. Many houses (or shacks) were built with total disregard to utilities availability. A hike to a formerly beautiful waterfall showed us the effects of raw sewage being dumped into the local river. City streets are either cobblestone or open, hard-packed dirt with ruts that often exceed 12" in depth. Yet even with these disturbing images there was always a feeling of hope. We looked at the partially completed landfill and sewage treatment plants being built. We visited a water treatment plant built years ago but never commissioned for use. We toured the partially completed gym/activity center. We visited the local Health Clinic and saw more of CAMO's influence there. All in all, the city officials did an excellent job of illustrating their needs.
     At our final meeting were Jamie, Dennis, Kathy, Juan Carlos, a city planner and myself. We discussed what we, as representatives of our cities, could do with the City of Santa Rosa de Copan. Dennis and Jamie made commitments to investigate the logistics of setting up a Sister City program. I volunteered to use the resources at my disposal to help them with the technical aspects of their projects. These resource items would include sharing technological information and actual donations of computer cabling materials. I stressed that education of the local workforce was key to the success of any project we would undertake. I offered my assistance in developing a basic training program for city electricians. The curriculum would be geared towards developing consistency and standards in installation practices. I suggested that after we had accomplished some education, a small-scale project such illumination of a local park would be an attainable goal.
     This description of my trip would be incomplete if I did not say anything about the wonderful treatment we received from our hosts. Our stay had many highlights outside of the stated goals. Juan Carlos hosted us numerous times at his restaurant for delicious meals and on the evening of July 31, we attended an event at the local cultural to watch a play that dramatized a typical "day in the life" of local Hondurans. We also listened to a local brass and woodwind ensemble give a concert with instruments that had been only recently donated by CAMO! In addition, Juan Carlos honored all three of us with plaques commemorating our trip as "Visitors of Honor" and presented us with a symbolic "Key to the City".
     When I volunteered my time to Kathy back in May, all I knew was I had come to a realization that I have been very blessed. Why God chose to bestow upon me everything I have in my life is, and will probably always be, a mystery to me. I don't think I could find a better organization or group of people where I could, in some small fashion, give of my time and talents.

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Up-date: the Mobile Medical Equipment Repair Vehicle project is well on its way! This important vehicle will allow the engineers to be able to better diagnose, repair, and maintain medical equipment. It is capable of traveling across the mountainous Honduran terrain and provides adequate space for the engineers, diagnostic and repair equipment, and medical equipment. This project will mean the difference of working equipment when it is needed the most and will mean the difference between life or death. The cost is $55,000.00 for the tools and vehicle. Thanks to the generous support of many, some of these funds have been raised, but we still have a way to go. If you are interested in helping with this greatly needed vehicle, please mark your donation MMERV or just specify Medical Vehicle.
     Our last wish is that God continues to bless you as he has most certainly blessed us.

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Calendar of Events
 
September 8-13 -- Wayne County Fair CAMO Booth
September 30 -- Shipment to Honduras
October 15 -- Unloading shipment
October 21 - Oct 28 -- Wheelchair, Audiometry, Prosthetic, Investigative Teams
October 28 - November 3 -- Cell Saver, Biomedical, Ultrasound and ACLS instructor course.
January 15 -- Shipment to Honduras
February 17- March 10 -- Counterpart and teaching teams to Honduras.

If you are interested in speaking for CAMO, please let us know! We have slide presentations and CAMO materials available. If you need a program for your group or club, please call the office at 330-683-5956.

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