| Our translators, in Ecuador and at home |
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Yosmari translating for IT person, Jim Raso
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An important aspect of our missions is being able to communicate in Spanish with our patients and their families. For Mission 2014, 11 men and women traveled from Edmonton to assume the roles of translators for the team. (We featured them in a previous newsletter.) Add to them 32 bilingual high school students from Cotopaxi School, Colegio Menor San Fransisco de Quito, British School and Colegio Americano in Quito, plus Yosmari Nellitza Garcia, Hugo Ruiz and Miluska Sanchez, adult volunteer translators who help in the clinic and on the wards. Miluska also recruits and schedules the student translators for our Mission.
Those of us with un poco de español are grateful to them a hundred times a day.
 | | Luis, Juan and Diego |
But even before we leave Edmonton, we rely heavily on the skills of Luis Alberto Florez, Juan Mejia and Diego Mejia, who have, over the last few years, translated all of our patient-related forms into Spanish to ensure that our patients, or their parents, understand the documents they must sign before surgery. As you can imagine, having the paperwork in their own language makes a very stressful time for the patients a little easier.
Diego has taken on the additional job of interviewing prospective CAMTA translators to assess their Spanish fluency. We are confident that he will recommend people who have the skills and the maturity to help the CAMTA team members communicate with the people we help.
¡Gracias a nuestros tres amigos!
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 When you organize a mission of the size and longevity of CAMTA you accumulate a lot of stuff - medical and surgical equipment and supplies, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, donated items, and the hockey bags to transport it all to Ecuador every year. You need space to organize and store it all until the mission departs. Plus you need a room big enough to hold a large group of enthusiastic volunteers when they meet.
For years Rick Forest of Forest Constrcution has let CAMTA use his warehouse for storage and meetings. We are very grateful for his generosity.
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During Mission 2014, the CAMTA team performed 44 hip replacements on 35 adults - some people had both hips replaced on the same day!
 For the past five years, Smith & Nephew has donated all of our hip replacement prostheses - the new ball and socket implants that replace the damaged parts of the hip joint.
CAMTA has replaced about 200 hip joints with Smith & Nephew prostheses since 2010. To give you some idea of the monetary value of this donation, a report published by Alberta Health in 2006 listed the cost of prosthetics used in hip replacement surgery in Alberta at $3351. That's over $670,000 of medical hardware!!
After their hip replacements, our Ecuadorean patients can resume their lives without pain, usually returning to jobs to support their families and enjoying greater mobility. Smith & Nephew has a large role in changing their lives, and the recipients are all genuinely grateful.
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Byron Ushina, Jewelery Designer
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 For many of the CAMTA volunteers, the opportunity to shop (in our spare time!) at local markets and shops is a welcome break from the intensity of the medical work.
One evening on each of the two weeks we are in Quito, Byron Ushina sets up a display of his handcrafted Ancestral Jewelry in our hotel. CAMTA volunteers are excited to see the rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces he brings each year.
Because Byron appreciates the work that CAMTA does in his country, he offers us a discount on our purchases, donates 10% of his sales back to CAMTA and gives us some beautiful items from his inventory to give away at our team cross-over dinner each year. CAMTA appreciates Byron's generosity. |
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If you are one of the 1400 people receiving this newsletter, it's because you have supported CAMTA in the past - as a team member, a donor, a board member, an at-home volunteer - somehow, some time you have added your time, talents or money to our Missions.
We may not have singled you out for special recognition, but know that you are appreciated and thanked, by CAMTA and by the people in Ecuador who are so grateful for the surgical help CAMTA gives them, with your help.
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