Winnipeggers help Nicaraguans in need of knees

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Alison Bartel (left) and Karen Watchorn shift a heavy box of supplies destined for Nicaragua. (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ) Photo Store

In a vast medical supply warehouse near Polo Park, volunteers are packing for a week-long mission to replace hips and knees in Nicaragua.

"We need to find the bone cement and take it out," said Alison Bartel, one of the organizers of Operation Walk and an orthopedic-surgery nurse at Concordia Hospital.

Bone cement is considered a hazardous good, so it's one of the items the mission is not shipping from Winnipeg to Nicaragua where they'll do 58 joint-replacement surgeries in three days.

The bone cement is one of the 33 pages of details that have to be taken care of before 50 or so volunteers from Winnipeg leave Oct. 17 for Managua.

There, they will help the needy get back on their feet in more ways than one.

"In many countries, physical labour is a way of life," said Bartel, who first volunteered with an Operation Walk mission to Guatemala in 2009. There, she and other nurses and doctors from Winnipeg saw the impact they could have on patients' lives in a developing country.

"They don't have wheelchairs -- their family carries them to church or to the hospital," said Bartel. With working joints, they can get around on their own and help their families and themselves.

"They've got hope." And they'll finally get some relief from chronic agony.

"People can have a pain-free life," said Bartel.

In developed countries such as Canada, hip and knee-joint "arthroplasty" is the standard of care for arthritis. In Canada, an estimated 60,000 joint replacements are performed annually.

"For me, it was tremendous," said Jordan Middlestead, who had a double-hip replacement in 2005 at the age of 52. He's one of the few laymen volunteering on the trip to Nicaragua. The 60-year-old is shooting a video and helping out however he can there, he said. For patients in Managua, he's a living testimonial. For the surgical team, he's their biggest cheerleader.

"I would go with these guys anywhere," said Middlestead.

In Nicaragua, the week of surgeries and post-op care will be the easy part after months of planning, preparation, fundraising and sleepless nights, said OR nurse Karen Watchorn, who is co-ordinating the trip with Bartel. After collecting unused and reusable medical supplies for years, she's now getting a chance to use them in Nicaragua.

"I've always been really interested in volunteer work," said Watchorn, who went on the Operation Walk mission to Guatemala organized by a team in London, Ont.

They're getting some guidance from Operation Walk headquarters in Los Angeles, where the non-profit organization began nearly 20 years ago, but it's a steep learning curve, say Bartel and Watchorn.

"We're OR nurses, not shippers, bookkeepers or fundraisers," said Bartel, who learned about Operation Walk's work at an orthopedic conference she attended five years ago. With the help of surgeons such as Tom Turgeon, the Concordia Hospital Foundation and volunteers at three hospitals, their mission to Nicaragua is almost ready.

One beautiful, sunny August evening, nurses, doctors, their kids and other volunteers gathered in the gloomy warehouse to unpack cartons of donated joints, label each one, then repack the boxes to pass through customs. Like all of the procedures, medical equipment, supplies and medicines, the surgical implants used by Operation Walk meet the standards set by Canadian regulatory agencies.

It's a win-win for patients and the caregivers, says one of the volunteers using vacation time to go. After 30 years, nurse Sharon Irwin said she'd just about had it with her administrative job making sure beds were available for patients getting joint replacements. "It seemed like I was always on the edge," moving patients through the system. She was fed up with the griping and perennial complaints about food. Then she took a trip with Operation Walk to Guatemala.

"I totally rejuvenated myself." She cared for patients and literally helped them get back on their feet again.

"I could just be a nurse. I felt like I can do this again."

To donate to Operation Walk go to http://concordiafoundation.ca/giving/operation-walk-winnipeg/

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 31, 2012 A14