Going the extra mile

East Kildonan

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This article was published 16/04/2025 (384 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When highly trained professionals come together to give their time to a common cause, there’s no telling the good that can come from it.

Just ask the folks involved with Operation Walk Manitoba. A registered charity and medical humanitarian organization that provides free joint replacement surgeries to patients in developing countries, Operation Walk Manitoba brings over 70 health care professionals from Concordia Hospital to Nicaragua for a week each November.

“There’s so much motivation for helping others that comes from a very deep place,” said Sue Barkman, a board member with Operation Walk and executive director of the Concordia Foundation. “The way I understand it, there’s such a need for orthopedic surgery in Nicaragua, as everyone rides motorcycles, so there’s a lot of trauma-induced injuries, and there’s a lot of arthritis.”

Operation Walk International was founded in 1996 by Dr. Lawrence Dorr, in Los Angeles, Calif., and has since expanded across the United States and Canada. Operation Walk Manitoba launched in 2012 under the leadership of Dr. Tom Turgeon, while Dr. David Hedden has been at the helm since 2018.

Since its inception, Operation Walk Manitoba has done over 1,100 surgeries — for free — at Hospital Manolo Morales Peralta in Managua, Nicaragua, for patients in need.

Last year, the team included 21 surgeons, anesthesiologists, surgeon assistants; 20 nurses; seven medical device reprocessing (MDR) specialists; five physiotherapists; five translators and interpreters; and 12 volunteers who take on a wide variety of tasks all worked together to perform 71 surgeries over three days. All members of the team used their own vacation time for the mission, and generally paid for their own travel.

“Working with the same people every day, year after year, you form these bonds, these relationships,” said Opalyn Vinzon, an operating room nurse at Concordia Hospital for the past 11 years, and Operation Walk board member and team leader. “We’ve worked really hard together. There’s no hierarchy. We couldn’t do our jobs without each other.”

Team members also learn to adapt to different conditions and the unexpected.

“Last year, the shipment of supplies was late,” Barkman said. “There was no container when they got there. They can’t do the surgeries without the supplies.”

“We did the whole clinic day telling these people we’d help them, but the supplies hadn’t arrived yet,” said Alex Peters, director of communications for Concordia Foundation who worked volunteered on last year’s mission. “It didn’t arrive until we were in the OR (operating room), so we lugged all these containers around with replacements parts and scissors and everything. It was all hands on deck, and then we had to unload the shipping crate and then continue what we were supposed to have done on the busiest day of the entire week.”

“Every member of that team, the common denominator is their purpose,” Barkman added. “People want to be a part of this, because it’s so electric in so many ways. It makes me motivated to want to raise as much money as we can, to make it good and easy for them. There’s a lot of giving back. There’s no guilt in this. It’s all joy.”

For members of the team who have taken part, the response from patients makes all the time and effort worthwhile.

“Knowing how much people need this but can’t get access to it, that’s a big reason why I do it,” Vinzon, who has been a part of the past three missions, said. “When I went, it was amazing. I had such a great experience. I know how much it changed me.”

“We’re here to help all these people, and see them in the end, super happy to be able to walk again,” Peters said. “It’s really just about helping another community who can’t get the help they need. Just going out there the one time sold me for the rest. I want to keep doing this for as long as I can.”

Organizing the annual mission, which this year will take place Nov. 6 to 12, is no small task, and involves many community partnerships and fundraising. The team essentially brings everything they need to open and run their own OR, so that they are not impeding the work Hospital Manolo Morales Peralta does day-to-day. The entire operation is run on a volunteer basis and funded by donations, in cash or in kind.

“It takes the whole year to plan. Every second counts,” Vinzon said. “Every month, every week, we’re working on it. Supply procurement, bringing everything we need like it’s our own OR, is huge. All of that is done through donations. We do as much fundraising as we can, to buy what we can’t get donated.”

For more information, or to contribute to the cause, visit operationwalkmb.ca