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Experience report 2016

3rd Brigade for Anorectal Malformations in Honduras 2016

The flight to Honduras is, as always, a small trip around the world with a high-security checkpoint in the United States, but it is definitely worth the effort. In San Pedro Sula we are warmly welcomed and expected by our friends in Honduras. Also this year, Dr. Juan Craniotis, the head of the “Fundación MAR” association at the “Ruth Paz” hospital, for the 3rd Brigade for the treatment of anorectal malformations 45 children on the tight calendar of operations planned for the coming week. The hospital is run by the “Fundación Ruth Paz” and Juan, as medical director and practicing pediatric surgeon, is particularly concerned with the well-being of children with anorectal malformations. Together with his pediatric surgeon colleague Dr. Elmer Herrera, everything was perfectly organized in advance and coordinated with our team. This year our team consists of Dr. Carlos Reck, who is currently completing his fellowship for colorectal surgery with Dr. Marc Levitt graduated, Dr. Renate Fartacek and Dr. Wilfried Krois, both from the Vienna General Hospital. This year we were able to support Dr. Christoph Arneitz from Pediatric Surgery in Klagenfurt and Alex Dingemans, a student from Utrecht, Netherlands. Christoph was able to organize important medical products in advance, for example a children's cystoscope, which was kindly donated by the Storz company, as well as numerous sutures from the Covidien company. Alex is currently doing a semester abroad at the Nationwides Children's Hospital in Ohio and was highly motivated to help us with the documentation and evaluation. This year we asked ourselves some scientific questions in advance about the diseases in the developing country Honduras and created questionnaires. We hope to be able to research the social problems surrounding the clinical picture and the need for assistance in the form of brigades in poorer countries. The local student Pastora was able to provide us with valuable help with the translation into Spanish.

We start the brigade on Monday morning at 7:30 a.m. on which 9 patients are scheduled. The program, from which we were ultimately able to operate on 41 patients (4 patients dropped out due to illness), were not only new patients, but also some “old friends” - again we were able to perform 12 closures of an artificial anus (stoma) and thus complete the treatment for these children. In addition, we were able to perform 21 anorectoplasties in the week for malformations that had not yet been treated, as well as 6 redo operations on children who had already been operated on with postoperative problems. Even a 27-year-old patient is close to tears after waking up from anesthesia when she hears that there is a possibility of better continence after the operation, although the extent of the improvement after Redo operations is uncertain at this age.

The political and violent situation in Honduras is declining somewhat, but overall the number of violent crimes remains very high. Fortunately, we spent the whole week without incident, and this year the organizers and Juan's family again went out of their way to look after our well-being.

October 28th is officially the “dia del medico” in Honduras - so we unexpectedly had the pleasure of being properly celebrated together with the other doctors on site and on this day between the operations we beat each other with countless delicacies and cakes Belly full - it's a shame that we haven't been able to give most of our patients any of it (yet).

All in all, our visit to Honduras this year was once again an incredible experience, enriching both for us as visitors and for the people on site, whose extraordinary gratitude is our greatest reward.

We look forward to the next mission in 2017!

The team of the MAR 2016 brigade

Video

Picture gallery

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October 24-28, 2016, SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS; RUTH PAZ HOSPITAL

Juan Craniotis Rios (HON), Elmer Herrera (HON), Carlos Reck (USA), Renate Fartacek (AUT), Wilfried Krois (AUT), Christoph Arneitz (AUT), Alex Dingemanes (NL), Pastora Xiomara Hernandéz (HON)

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Donation account

HELPING HANDS FOR ANORECTAL PAINTING INFORMATION

IBAN: AT89 2011 1826 8970 0500
BIC: GIBAATWWXXX
Institute: Erste Bank

3RD BRIGADE 2016

2nd BRIGADE 2015

DONATION ACCOUNT

HELPING HANDS FOR ANORECTAL PAINTING INFORMATION

IBAN:   AT89 2011 1826 8970 0500
BIC: GIBAATWWXXX
Institute: Erste Bank

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