The goal: 100 joint replacements in four days
Doctorss Seth and Brett Greenky are the last of their team to leave Syracuse for Nepal, where they'll do joint replacements
A medical team of fifty, headed by Syracuse orthopedic surgeons Seth and Brett Greenky, is on its way to Nepal to do joint replacements for needy people there. The two doctors were the last to leave, flying out of Hancock Airport on Tuesday evening.
The logistics of Operation Walk are daunting. "We bit off a lot," says Dr. Seth "I hope we can chew it all." The community here help raise a quarter million dollars (airfares alone are $1800 per person). The team's time is all donated, and so are the medical supplies and prosthetics, which, along with four complete operating rooms---15-thousand pounds worth, were shipped last month, ahead of the people. It will be a very different experience than operating at 'home' at St. Joseph's Hospital. Dr. Brett likens it to setting up a MASH unit.
The goal: to do 100 joint replacements--mostly knees--in 4 days. This, after only a couple days of acclimatizing after the 22 hour flight. (most of the team went Syracuse-JFK-Hong Kong-Nepal, but the doctors are going the 'other way': Syracuse-JFK-Quatr--in the Arab Emirates--to Nepal. And, when they come back, they'll be doing even more operations, free, for needy people here.
Syracuse is the smallest city yet to be selected as part of Operation Walk. Dr. Brett says the team feels like it represents our community in this effort. The national organization selected Nepal as the place for 'our' mission because needs are currently great there. Other teams have gone to Cuba, Guatemala and other countries.
When the team comes back, its work continues here. The week after Thanksgiving, they expect to be doing more joint replacement operations, here, for people who are too 'rich' to qualify for medicaid, but whose incomes are below the 'two and a half times the poverty level' cutoff. They have some patients, but are looking for more
See a previous interview with Doctors Brett and Seth Greenky on the Operation Walk mission.
We will have updates for you, from Nepal, as the mission continues.
