NOMMS News

Another update from our team in Matagalpa, after the 3rd day of seeing patients in surgeries and in the eye clinic! 

"We are so pleased to announce that we reached our 1,000th eyeglass clinic patient after lunch on Wednesday! Dr. Black operated on a 13-year-old boy suffering from congenital absence of the right ear (with some hearing ability). He performed a 1st stage reconstructive surgery using cartilage from one of the boy's left ribs. The difficulty with this kind of case is that subsequent surgeries will be required for the boy to progress through additional stages of reconstruction, so Dr. Black will need to return with NOMMS to continue supporting the boy's surgery and recovery long-term, working alongside with Dr. Jose Cruz. So the NOMMS missions will always be in need of as much support as possible so we can keep up this amazing work!"

--  Guest blogger: Mike Atwater, NOMMS Volunteer



Stay tuned to this blog every day as we share stories from the ground, straight from the NOMMS volunteers who are hard at work fulfilling our organization's mission. This week will feature stories from Matagalpa, and next week we'll feature stories from Chinandega as the 2012 Nicaragua mission continues.

Our week 1 team for this year's Nicaragua mission has been hard at work in Matagalpa since their arrival over the weekend. Here's a recap of the mission activities so far: 

"After arriving in Matagalpa on Saturday and setting up for this week's surgeries and eye clinic all day Sunday, today was our first day of seeing patients, fulfilling our mission of making a difference for the less fortunate and changing their lives for the better. As a new member of NOMMS, I am humbled but so grateful to be able to be a small part of this amazing mission. Today we saw nearly 400 patients in the eyeglass clinic and performed 10 surgeries, including a cleft palate procedure for a 6-month-old infant. The experience so far has been inspiring and gratifying; we are all lucky and blessed to be part of this amazing opportunity. Although it can be exhausting work, this mission has already begun to change the lived of our 23 volunteer who are part of this mission, & we will continue to devote ourselves to help as many people as we can in the next three and a half days! The town of Matagalpa and our gracious hosts, Club Matagalpa, have been the most fantastic people and hosts we could have asked for. What a life changing experience for all…"

--  Guest blogger: Mike Atwater, NOMMS Volunteer




Stay tuned to this blog every day as we share stories from the ground, straight from the NOMMS volunteers who are hard at work fulfilling our organization's mission. This week will feature stories from Matagalpa, and next week we'll feature stories from Chinandega as the 2012 Nicaragua mission continues.

Save the Dates! 

This year's Mission Possible Gala will take place Friday, June 22nd at Generations Hall. This year's Golf Tournament will take place Friday, October 26th at Audubon Golf Club. For more information, see the Events page. 

NOMMS is excited about our plans for 2012. Although the year is already underway, we wanted to share with you the items we're working on and goals we will be working toward this year as we continue to grow and develop NOMMS to be a more effective and efficient organization in the service of those in poverty in Central and South America. 

1. Conduct 3 missions – 2 in Nicaragua (with Eye Clinic), 1 in Ecuador (no Eye Clinic).
2. Continue donations of medical materials.
3. Expand Dental Clinic services.
4. Continue to encourage incoming donations of medical materials.
5. Establish investment funds for existing available capital and monies collected from the major fundraising campaign.
6. Launch major fundraising campaign.
7. Expand promotion of Gala and Golf fundraising
8. Expand Second Collection donations from Churches.
9. Complete implementation of the Volunteer data base.
10. Enhance the management and control of volunteer activities.
11. Complete implementation of the Donor data base.
12. Enhance the management and control of Donors both financial and In-Kind.
13. Revise and update NOMMS marketing materials.
14. Design and implement NOMMS Management Reporting Systems.
15. Interface GAAP accounting system with Donor data base and NOMMS Management Reporting Systems.
16. Continue to develop the NOMMS Succession Plan for NOMMS Boards, Officers and key staff.

We're happy to report that this year's Mission Possible Gala was a great success for NOMMS!

The food and music were amazing, and our auctions were a hit. Attendance exceeded out expectations, reaching more than 500 - Generations Hall was packed with NOMMS supporters from across the Gulf States, inlcuding not only Louisiana but also Mississippi, Texas, Florida, and Alabama! Our proceeds exceeded last year's proceeds by 30% and exceeded our goals for this year!


Volunteers of the Year: Bob & Maureen Shaw


Outstanding Corporate Generosity: Dauterive Hospital HCA in New Iberia, LA.


Special thanks to all of the sponsors and participants who made this event possible:

NOMMS wishes to express our sincerest gratitude for the supporters of our recent mission to Matagalpa, Nicaragua. 

On behalf of ourselves and the people who received health care during the mission, we express our gratitude to the following companies and organizations that donated medical supplies and loaned NOMMS instruments:

• Ochsner Health Systems: Donated Surgical supplies and loaned surgical instruments.
• East Jefferson General Hospital: Donated Surgical supplies and loaned surgical instruments.
• Tulane Lakeside Hospital: Donated medical and surgical supplies.
• Stryker Medical: Donated orthopedic prosthesis, surgical supplies and loaned surgical instruments.
• Patio Drugs: Donated antibiotics and anesthesia medications.
• Lions Club: Donated eyeglasses for the eye clinic.

 

 

In addition, we offer our sincere and heartfelt appreciation to Club Matagalpa for helping to coordinate our medical mission and for providing the food, lodging, and transportation for our mission team. Our Nicaragua supporters were:

Mayon

Sunorte

Batca

CCN

Dollar Rent Car

Beneficio de Café la Provedencia

Expojara, S.A.

Agropecuarias las Nubes

Inversiones Mierish, S.A.

Felix Pedro Rizo

Restaurante Gallo Pinto

Movies

Tequilas Bar and Grill

Incomacom

Panaderia San Antonio

Inveragro

Hotel Lomas de Saint Thomas

Mana del Cielo

Publitec

Texaco Central


Thank you all so much for your support - we couldn't have done it without you!

Tune in to the WWL-TV morning show this Thursday (the day before the Mission Possible Gala!) to check out NOMMS Board Member Dr. Tom Kennedy speak at 8:15am. Or tune in to the whole show to see featured cooks from Marie's Catering, one of the restaurants helping out with the Gala on Friday. Support NOMMS and check out the show Thursday morning!

UPDATE: You can view a video of the segment on the WWL-TV website by clicking here. Hear our own Dr. Thomas Kennedy talks about the Mission Possible Gala while Fleur de Lis Catering, who participated in the Gala, shows how to make their Crawfish Bread Pudding - a delicious treat we were able to sample at the event!

On Thursday the eye clinic split in two so that half of the team could visit a school and a retirement home outside of the city while the rest held down the fort at the hospital. We departed for the school at 7:30am and arrived to a room full of kids ranging in age from two to thirteen, all anxiously waiting to have their eyes read. The nuns who ran the school were incredibly welcoming and thankful that we came to visit the children and fit them with glasses. We saw over 100 kids, most of whom said they had trouble seeing the board in class, and fit them with glasses.

One case was particularly challenging. We used the auto-refractor to read the eyes of Alex, 11 years old, and received a relatively high prescription of -5.00 in the right eye and -5.25 in the left. In the first bag of glasses closest to that range I found a single pair that fit those numbers, an old,  worn out, and frankly ugly pair with huge gold frames. Alex looked skeptical, but I asked him to try them anyway. He put them on and said “muy barroso” (very blurry) and took them off as quickly as he could, with tears in his eyes at the thought of having to wear those awful glasses. With the help of one of the high school girls who came to volunteer with us, I told him not to worry, I wouldn’t send him home with a pair like that. He wiped his eyes and we proceeded to try approximately 40 pairs of glasses, none of which worked for him, as Alex became steadily more discouraged, believing we wouldn’t find anything to help him. After re-reading his eyes and trying several more pairs, we finally settled on some that helped him that he was happy with, and his face brightened with relief at being able to see clearly. I handed him a nice case for his new glasses and the quiet boy gave me a little hug before he left, clutching his new glasses in their case.

At the same time, another little girl was being fitted with her new glasses by volunteer Eric. The pretty blue frames, which matched her dress perfectly, had previously belonged to the son of another of our eye clinic volunteers, Povy. Seeing this single pair of glasses make its way from owner to donation box, to the Harahan Lion’s Club who reads the prescriptions for us, back to the NOMMS warehouse and down to Nicaragua, and onto the face of this little girl who needs them, was really an exciting process.

Before heading back to the hospital we also visited a retirement home, the Hogar de Ancianos San Francisco de Asis, where volunteer John patiently used the auto-refractor to read the eyes of over 25 residents and a handful of staff members from the home. We carefully marked the prescription readouts with the names and ages of the retirees, who will be delivered glasses and reading glasses from our inventory in a few days.

Meanwhile, the eye clinic staff back at the hospital was seeing patients of their own, while dealing with the fact that the lights in the eye clinic room went out partway through the day. Despite the fact that they had to work in dim conditions and were short-staffed, they still saw nearly 250 patients of their own, brining the day’s total to nearly 400. All in all, it was an incredibly successful day for the eye clinic team!

One of the priorities for NOMMS is during our missions is the process of knowledge exchange with our partners in-country. On Wednesday I spoke with Dr. Dauterive, & Head Nurse Joan about their experiences with this, after witnessing one of their morning surgeries, a laparoscopic gallbladder removal. Dr. Dauterive said that when he is able to share something from his experience with the doctors here in Nicaragua that can really help them with their work long after we’re gone, it is one of the most rewarding parts of the mission for him. These “teaching moments” can help broaden the knowledge base of the Nicaraguan doctors and lead to more effective treatments and procedures for their patients.

On Wednesday, Dr. Dauterive and his team performed three complete surgeries, a laparoscopic gallbladder removal for a 61 year-old woman, and two hernias (for 50 year-old and 21 year-old women), and assisted Dr. Colon with an ovarian cyst removal (for a 41 year-old woman). Alongside the NOMMS team in these procedures were local Nicaraguan doctors from the hospital here in Matagalpa: Dr. Sandival, Dr. Darmas, and Dr. Argueta.

One of the many benefits of this mission in particular is the utilization of laparoscopic methods. The hospital has had a laparoscopic machine for about two years, thanks to some grant money they received, but it is only used for a relatively small number of procedures, maybe four or five times per week. Dr. Dauterive and his team are able to impart useful experience with this type of procedure to the Matagalpan doctors, showing them potential pitfalls in routine procedures such as abnormal anatomy, and discussing different ways of doing things that may be outside their sphere of experience here; by taking advantage of these “teaching moments” Dr. Dauterive is able to help the doctors here develop greater efficiency in their procedures and more effectively utilize the technologies at their disposal, such as the laparoscopic machine, which could ultimately result in less invasive procedures for the patients here and shorter recovery times as well.

But the learning process isn’t just one-way. Dr. Dauterive emphasized that every time he visits another country on a mission, he learns something from the local doctors that helps him improve his practices as well. It’s truly a process of knowledge exchange.

Eudosia broke into a huge smile when NOMMS volunteer and physical therapist Jeroen walked into her recovery room. The 89-year-old woman was anxious to demonstrate how good she has been doing with her exercises, determined to walk again as soon as possible. It’s been two months since Eudosia walked – she suffers from painful osteoarthritis of the knee and is one of the patients selected by the Regional Hospital Matagalpa for a NOMMS surgical procedure – hers was one of the first we performed here in Nicaragua this week.

Dr. Bourgeois explained the procedure to me after my visit with her, saying that a total knee replacement is like a resurfacing of the knee, where the joint surface is removed and replaced – you can almost think of it as retreading a tire. The ligaments and tendons are left alone as the worn-out cartilage is removed, and a cap is placed on the surface, acting in place of the cartilage. The procedure will greatly improve Eudosia’s mobility and, after 2-3 months of healing, should greatly reduce her pain.

Sitting with her in the recovery room were members of her family, including two of her sons: Ronal and Orlando. Orlando was a visitor to the eye clinic earlier in the day, and was happy to report that his new glasses worked well for him. Ronal, the oldest of Eudosia’s seven children, and his girlfriend Aura, told me that their whole family lives in Matagalpa, and how Eudosia worked as a maid and loves television. Jeroen, who helped her with her physical therapy while I took some photos, said of Eudosia, “She’s very determined, she wants to walk. I have no doubt she’ll do well.”

Below: Eudosia with Jeroen and two of her sons.