Quito Focus

IMAHelps volunteers provided free surgeries, gynecological, dentistry, prosthetics, medical evaluations, treatment and medicine to 3,750 patients during our July 29-Aug. 6 mission to Quito, Ecuador.

         Our volunteers performed nearly 70 general, orthopedic and plastic surgeries inside Hospital General Docente de Calderón, while the rest of our medical mission team worked inside mash-like tents outside the facility, where most of the medical care was provided. Our medical mission team not only included doctors and surgeons, dentists, and our prosthetics team, but specialists in acupuncture and other Eastern pain management techniques.

         For the first time, our medical mission team included members of an inner city high school robotics team from Cleveland, Ohio, who designed mechanical arms and hands for several patients. Our Quito mission also included Dr. Marilu Romero, the first psychotherapist to join the IMAHelps team.

         “Word spread quickly among the poorest areas of Quito and beyond that our team was providing free surgeries and other medical, dental and prosthetic care, and after a couple of days we had lines of people two blocks long waiting to see us each morning,” said Dr. Cris Barrios, Jr., IMAHelps president and CEO.

         National news crews from Quito produced news reports highlighting the variety of services provided by the IMAHelps team, which included more than 80 volunteers. Long lines of patients began to circle the hospital by the second day of the IMAHelps mission.
           

The patients on this latest IMAHelps mission were from some of the poorest areas of Quito. Dr. Barrios and other IMAHelps volunteers visited impoverished hillside areas of Quito earlier this year where people live in shacks and told community leaders about our plans for a medical mission at Calderón Hospital this summer. IMAHelps then worked with an Ecuador-based nonprofit organization, which provided bus transportation to ensure that the poorest of the poor people living in Quito’s shantytowns could benefit from the services provided by the IMAHelps team.

            “Thanks to our pre-mission coordination and outreach efforts, we were able to ensure that the poorest of Quito’s poor were able to take advantage of the services provided during our medical mission,” Dr. Barrios said.

            Internal medicine patients treated by the IMAHelps team suffered from a variety of ailments, from stomach parasites to diabetes and high blood pressure.

          “We saw a lot of people with back and joint pain and also with quite poor dentition,” said Dr. Jessie Davis, who helped coordinate the mission team as triage director. “We also saw several children with heart murmurs who had been unable to obtain the necessary studies and follow up.”

            Dr. Davis said IMAHelps requested numerous laboratory tests for patients who came seeking treatment and diagnoses. IMAHelps’ internal medical doctors also referred many patients to our pain management team, which provides acupuncture and other Eastern medicine techniques to control both intermittent and chronic pain.

     IMAHelps’ dental team had five dentists who treated over 500 patients with everything from tooth extractions to restorations to endodontics, according to Carolina Vasconcelos, our longtime dental assistant who works as a coordinator for the dental team.
            “One special case we had was a 55-year-old male who suffered from an accident 38 years ago, falling into a tank face first. His mandible still had the wires that normally are to be removed six weeks after surgery,” Vasconcelos said. “Dr. Stephen Goei, our maxillofacial surgeon from Pasadena, removed it for him. Our patient then broke down in tears as he began to understand that he no longer needed those wires and that he could now move forward. We hugged and took a picture together and off he went.”

            Vasconcelos said several patients showed their gratitude to the IMAHelps dental team in a variety of ways, with children drawing pictures and adults bringing traditional plates of cuy or guinea pig to share with the mission team.

Below is a video overview of the August 2023 IMAHelps mission to Ecuador, which was provided to us courtesy of Marina Kufa, a videographer who has spent the past couple of years documenting the work of IMAHelps volunteers in Ecuador.