Children's Hospital provides life-saving care every single day...

Our Children's Hospital provides life-saving care every single day through outpatient care, inpatient treatment and surgical care. When a child needs surgery, there are very few options in Haiti. If a provider can be found to perform a surgery, most often the family will still struggle to pay for the surgery needed. A few weeks ago, our hospital hosted a Haitian surgical team to provide surgeries to children who needed them in our area. Every surgery is life changing and for four days this team worked alongside our DCMC staff to provide the best quality surgical experience to each child and family in need. Together, we performed a total of eight life-changing hernia surgeries to seven children.

Hernias can have serious, sometimes life threatening complications where the bowel is strangulated causing no blood flow to the intestines. Hernia's are painful, can cause discomfort and will continue to worsen until repaired. Each child who received hernia repair surgery was previously in pain and uncomfortable on a daily basis. As a child ages, an unrepaired hernia can be visible and even cause embarrassment, as the hernia grows larger. After surgery, there is immediate relief and the child never has to worry that the hernia will come back.

One child had an undiagnosed strangulated hernia. This is a life threatening condition and the surgeon was so thankful that he was able to repair the hernia when he did. It is truly a miracle the child was on the list to have surgery and received the care when he did.

Providing these surgeries meets a huge need in our community in Haiti. Thank you for giving so that children's lives can be improved through medical care.