|
|
 | Press Release
| |
|
|
| Children who need reconstructive spinal surgery are helped
|
| Llonella Gilbert
|
| 04/23/2007
|
For four years, Dr. Vietta Johnson, Chief Orthopaedic Surgeon at Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois leads a group of internationally renowned surgeons from the United States to perform reconstructive spinal surgery to children at the Princess Margaret Hospital. Key persons involved in the project received plaques from PMH. Pictured from left: Dr. Vietta Johnson; Deputy Principal Nursing Officer (PNO), Sis. Julieth Minnis; Financial Controller, PMH, Phillip Greenslade; visiting surgeon, Arizona, Dr. William Stevens; representative from DePuy Spine, Inc. (a Johnson and Johnson company), Mr. Rodd Newman; Consultant Podiatrist, PMH, Dr. Daniel Johnson; Deputy Hospital Administrator, PMH, Mrs. Michelle Roache and Deputy Hospital Administrator, PMH, Ms. Dorothy Hepburn. (Photo by: Tim Aylen)
NASSAU, The Bahamas --- Dr. Vietta Johnson, Chief Orthopaedic Surgeon at Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois is leading a team of specialists for the fourth consecutive year to examine children who need reconstructive spinal surgery.
Dr. Johnson and fellow surgeons partner with the Physically Challenged Children’s Committee and the Princess Margaret Hospital to afford children the opportunity to receive club-foot (or bow-leg) and scoliosis surgical procedures, Deputy Hospital Administrator Mrs. Dorothy Hepburn said.
According to Dr. Johnson, an evaluation is made as to who needs the surgery most urgently, and then she and a team of doctors and nurses perform the surgeries at Princess Margaret Hospital at no cost to the patient and their families.
This undertaking is made possible with help from “internationally known and eminent surgeons” from around the United States, Dr. Johnson said at a press conference recently.
Podiatrist consultant at PMH, Dr. Daniel Johnson said, “This is a special project for very special people and it takes a special team of individuals to really put it together.” The project, ‘Hailey’s Gift’, is named in recognition of Dr D Johnson’s daughter, Hailey, who was born with various “orthopaedic abnormalities”.
Dr V. Johnson was in Freeport working on another project with Dr. D. Johnson who had to leave and come to New Providence after the birth of his daughter. Dr. V. Johnson was later called to see if she could have been of some assistance.
“Hailey was taken to be an angel in January 2002, but through her, I was exposed to many of the children here in The Bahamas that had various physical abnormalities which were under the guise of orthopaedics,” she said.
Dr. V. Johnson also performs nerve decompression surgery for persons with diabetes. This procedure helps diabetics avoid the devastating sequelae (an abnormal condition resulting from a previous disease) of ulcers and/or amputations.
To date Dr. V. Johnson and the team of surgeons have performed over 41 club foot and 12 scoliosis procedures to children and more than 52 nerve decompression surgeries for diabetic patients at PMH, the Deputy Health Administrator Mrs. Hepburn said.
Since the spinal corrective surgery project started four years ago, more than $7 million worth of goods and services have been rendered, Dr. V. Johnson said.
Dr. D. Johnson commended the Physically Challenged Children’s Committee (PCCC) for the part it plays.
Before Dr. Johnson started her endeavour, children who needed corrective surgery went to the United States and the PCCC paid up to $70,000 for accommodations, food and transportation for the duration of their stay in the hospital.
Although the patients can now remain in The Bahamas, the PCCC still pays for transportation, food and housing whenever needed, Dr. D. Johnson said.
“For the people in the Family Islands who cannot afford the airfare or to be in Nassau for three days, the committee will actually fund them.”
He added that one day Bahamians will be the ones doing what Dr. V. Johnson and her fellow surgeons are doing because they are undergoing a kind of apprenticeship with the American surgeons as they collaborate, talk and discuss, Dr. D. Johnson added.
“We also have a teaching hospital here at PMH, which is a part of the West Indies. We have the immediate capabilities of putting some of the structure, the same methodology in place in the University of the West Indies programme that can filter into the Caribbean.”
Dr. Johnson was accompanied by American Spine Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr. William Stevens and Rodd Newman a representative from DePuy Spine, Inc. (a Johnson and Johnson company) that donates spine equipment to the project.
|