PITTSBURGH – May 14, 2007 – A 9-year old Nicaraguan boy’s journey from rural Nicaragua to Pittsburgh for surgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC is the result of months of work by an innovative humanitarian partnership, which also highlights the Pittsburgh region’s strengths in both health care and international leadership.
Elkin Fonseca Zapata—from the village of Los Cedros in Villa El Carmen—fractured his windpipe in a fall from a tree almost two years ago. At a hospital in Nicaragua, he received an emergency tracheotomy that saved his life, but he has been breathing with the help of a metal tube in his throat ever since. He will undergo reconstructive surgery at Children’s Hospital’s famed Airway and Voice Center, under the leadership of otolaryngologist Robert F. Yellon, MD.
Children’s Hospital (see www.chp.edu) is one of the leading centers in the country offering this type of procedure, which involves using carefully shaped pieces of the child’s own rib cartilage to widen and repair the damaged area. Depending on the severity of the injury, recovery can take anywhere from a week to several months, according to Dr. Yellon. If successful, Elkin will be able to discard the breathing tube in his throat, return to school, and resume a normal life.
“Unfortunately, living in a rural village in Nicaragua with poor access to medical care, Elkin has been at great risk for developing airway infections and complications. And because of the stigma of his tracheostomy tube, he has not been attending school,” Dr. Yellon said. “Our goal is to repair his airway so he can return to school and to a normal and healthy childhood.”
Elkin’s journey to Pittsburgh began in October 2006, when his grandmother, Miriam Araica, brought him to meet representatives of innerCHANGE associates international, who were working in Los Cedros. Based in Sewickley, innerCHANGE is a cross-cultural consulting firm specializing in managing sustainable and culturally appropriate humanitarian development programs (see www.innerchangeinternational.com).
With associates in Nicaragua, innerCHANGE directs the Children, Health, Education, and Supporting Services (CHESS) program, which coordinates a variety of health care and education projects in 12 rural communities in the Nicaraguan municipality of Villa El Carmen. CHESS is funded jointly by the Alianzas program of the US Agency for International Development; Rotary Clubs in Pittsburgh, western Pennsylvania, and elsewhere; and by Gran Pacifica Beach and Golf Resort, a real estate development adjacent to Villa El Carmen in which several Pittsburghers have major leadership roles (see www.granpacifica.com). Gran Pacifica’s significant “hands-on” and financial support for CHESS and Elkin’s trip to Pittsburgh reflects its emphasis on “socially responsible development of real estate in the Americas” as part of its mission.
“We arranged for Elkin to be examined by a doctor in Managua,” said Janet Foerster, President of innerCHANGE and project director for CHESS. “Elkin clearly needed further medical attention in the U.S. so he could return to school and begin to lead a normal life.”
In January 2007, during a Gran Pacifica shareholders meeting in Managua, innerCHANGE and Gran Pacifica personnel arranged for Dr. Edward Barksdale, a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh who was attending the meeting, to visit Elkin in his home village. Barksdale determined that Elkin needed to come to Pittsburgh for further medical evaluation to determine whether tracheal surgery could be possible.
“When I met Elkin, it was clear to me he is a bright child with his whole life before him. Yet because of this terrible accident, his education and his childhood have suffered and his situation was only getting worse,” Dr. Barksdale said. “As a father and as a pediatric specialist, I realized that we must do the best we can to offer the resources of Children’s Hospital to help Elkin and his family.”
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Children’s Hospital Dr. Ed Barksdale (left) meets Elkin and grandmother (center)In Nicaragua, January 2007 |
Since January, innerCHANGE has spearheaded the multifaceted effort to bring Elkin to Pittsburgh. In Nicaragua, innerCHANGE’s Nicaragua associates and Gran Pacifica personnel arranged for passports, powers of attorney, visa interviews, and appropriate medical documentation, with costs covered by Gran Pacifica. In Pittsburgh, other key players included immigration lawyer Jackie Martinez, who drafted letters to key players in the process; Bill Bayer in US Senator Arlen Specter’s Pittsburgh office, who was instrumental in expediting the process by which Elkin and his grandmother earned visas to enter the US; Gran Pacifica’s public relations consultant Mark Miner, who worked with the staff of Children’s Hospital to produce a video that was sent to Nicaragua to introduce Elkin and his family to Children’s Hospital and its medical team, including Colombian-born pediatrician Dr. Diego Chaves-Gnecco, who also runs a pediatric clinic for Pittsburgh’s Hispanic community called Salud para Niños; and Carl Ross, Professor at the Robert Morris University’s School of Nursing, who has made dozens of humanitarian trips to Nicaragua over the years and who—with his family—opened their home to Elkin and his grandmother while they are in Pittsburgh; and the Rotary Club of Pittsburgh, which is leading the Rotary effort in supporting the CHESS project and which has agreed to cover local support costs for Elkin and his grandmother.
Pittsburgh has probably done more than any US city to assist Nicaragua over the years. The Pittsburgh Rotary Club, along with local foundations and corporate support both here and in Nicaragua, has already established two Roberto Clemente Health Clinics in Nicaragua, in honor of the Pittsburgh Pirates legend who lost his life trying to fly life-saving supplies following the 1972 earthquake that devastated Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua. In addition, other Rotary Clubs and humanitarian service organizations in the Pittsburgh region have provided substantial amounts of health-care equipment, medicines, and supplies to Nicaragua for over a decade.
Another crucial partner in this effort was American Airlines’ Miles for Kids program (see www.aa.com/milesforkids), with which Foerster worked to get Elkin’s and his grandmother’s roundtrip airfare covered. Elkin and his grandmother arrived in Pittsburgh on May 1st, escorted from Managua by Foerster, Liz Miner, and American Airlines’ Becky Milano. (Elkin’s mother died over three years ago, and his father remained in Nicaragua to care for his four brothers.) Medical evaluation confirmed that Elkin was a good candidate for tracheal reconstruction.
With everything else, Elkin and his grandmother were still able to join their hosts and watch the Pittsburgh Pirates defeat the Atlanta Braves on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 13th.
The story of Elkin’s journey has already received national attention in Elkin’s native country. In a press conference with national television and press media at Nicaragua’s Institute of Tourism (INTUR) in Managua just before he left for Pittsburgh, Elkin was named an official Ambassador of Good Will to the United States.
“Since mid-January, we have built a wonderful partnership of organizations in both the U.S. and in Nicaragua to make this trip for Elkin and his grandmother a reality,” Foerster said. “I am quite sure that Elkin’s visit is just another step in a very important process that will result in better living conditions for families in Central America and improved relations between the United States and Nicaragua.”
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Contacts:
For Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh:
Mark Lukasiak, 412-692-7919 or 412-692-5016, marc.lukasiak@chp.edu
Melanie Finnigan, 412-692-5502 or 412-692-5016, melanie.finnigan@chp.edu
For Gran Pacifica:
Mark Miner, 412-370-5302, mark@markminer.com
For innerCHANGE associates international:
Janet Foerster, 412-749-1177 or 412-445-9920, jfoerster@innerchangeinternational.com
Thomas Buell, 412.720.2218, tcbuell@versopartners.com
For the Rotary Club of Pittsburgh:
Schuyler Foerster, 412-281-7070 or 412-445-9560, sky@worldaffairspittsburgh.org
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