Okanagan surgical team bound for Ethiopia

KELOWNA– A group of Okanagan doctors, nurses and Rotary Club volunteers are part of a 21 person, all Canadian team heading to Ethiopia.

As part of Rotoplast Canada, the team will take over a hospital in the community of Bahir Dar for two weeks to perform life changing surgeries on mostly women and children.

They will repair cleft lips and cleft palates as well as provide burn treatment and gynecological surgeries.

In Africa’s tribal culture, people with physical injuries and abnormalities are often shunned.

Children may not be allowed to go to school and husbands often leave wives who are damaged by multiple pregnancies.

The team isn’t just providing medical care, it’s also providing an education component for local medical workers.

The goal is to open a satellite burn treatment centre in Bahir Dar within the next three years.

It means people outside of major centres in Ethiopia will have on-going access to treatment.

The team expects hundreds of people to show up for surgical screening.

Doctors will only be able to treat between 60 and 80 patients during the two week stay but many more locals will have access to long term treatment thanks to the training and equipment left behind.

The mission is partially funded by Rotary International which mandates that the program be sustainable.

The team leaves for Ethiopia on November 4th.