ACORN Article – Operation Footprint – Podiatric Miracles
By: Michael Zapf, D.P.M.
March 2003
The sine qua non of podiatric surgery is arguably the correction of a
clubfoot on a 6 month old baby. You must excuse me, however, if my chest swells
with pride as a group of my colleagues and I went to Honduras last month and did
just that -- more than two dozen times. Not all were babies. Several were
elementary school age children and a couple young adults were recipients of our
brigade’s efforts.
The whole project started with the humanitarian efforts of local activist,
Sandy Schultz. She joined the Peace Corps after retirement and spent two years
in Honduras. Since that time she lives for 5 months in Honduras helping her
people. The other 7 months are spent in Newbury Park raising the money for her
time in Honduras. She spends her time in this poor Central American country
caring for the poorest of the poor. She brings them food and clothing and
arranges for medical help. She has a stable of people who are in need of
correction of one or two club feet. She came to my Rotary Club with a request
for help for her "club feet people." I put her in touch with a group of
podiatrists who have been traveling to Mexico for 26 years performing club foot
repairs and the rest, as they say, is history.
A club foot occurs in one in every 1000 births. In a community like ours
these babies are quickly identified and a process of stretching and casting is
started in the first month of life. This procedure is very simple and results in
a correction nearly every time. Without manipulation and casting in early life,
the foot will be rapidly become quite rigid and only surgery can straighten it.
Even with manipulation and casting some children’s feet still will not
straighten and they also need surgery.
In Honduras, like many underdeveloped countries, there is no system in place
to identify these children at birth. When they are identified later in life, by
Sandy or others, there is no hope without surgery. Getting surgery for these
children is very difficult. When we went to the 400 bed hospital we met their
orthopedic surgeon. He is quite knowledgeable about club foot correction but he
is completely hamstrung. The hospital has no supplies or equipment to help the
children. Enter the Baja Project for Crippled Children.
Twenty six years ago a group of (then young) volunteer podiatrists answered a
call for help in Mexicali, Mexico. Since then the "Baja Group" has traveled to
Mexico every Saturday to identify and treat children in Mexico who have
orthopedic abnormalities. Once a month, for 26 years, they have performed the
complex and intricate club foot procedures these children need to walk. They are
now treating the children of former patients.
Five years ago the Baja Group took the program on the road. Annually they
packed up $100,000 worth of equipment and took it to El Salvador. When this
year’s trip was scuttled by inhospitable conditions in El Salvador, they agreed
to come to the aid of Sandy’s Children in neighboring Honduras.
I was privileged to be with the group during the first week of March. Working
from sunrise to sundown they performed surgery after surgery on children who
traveled from all corners of Honduras. These children, Anna Marie, Javier,
Junior (two Junior’s actually) and others now have new feet. In a few months
they will get their casts off and, with a little practice, will walk to school
when they are old enough.
Each of these surgeries in the States could easily cost $15,000 to $20,000.
We did all of our surgeries for $21,000, mostly for air fares and $10,000 worth
of supplies we left with the hospital for post-operative care. (Of course all
our doctors donated their time.) The Rotary Club of Agoura Hills/Oak Park has
raised a good portion of this money and my club, Westlake Sunrise, is trying to
raise the rest. We are raffling a new $35,000 Lexus at $100 a ticket. The car is
on display at The Oaks Shopping Center. The raffle is on April 27, so you still
have time if you want to buy a ticket.
Some of the surgeries were very complex and will need a second surgery to
"fine tune" the correction. Also there are many more we did not have the time to
correct. On the last day of surgeries there were 25 new children with club feet
waiting at the operating room door. It broke all our hearts to say next time. We
hope to go back next October, but that depends on our success in raising funds
to first pay for this trip.
To see photographs of these beautiful children, please see the Operation
Footprint portion of my website, www.conejofeet.com. For information on the
Lexus raffle please see http://www.rotaryevents.com/lexusRaffle.htm .
##
Dr. Michael Zapf is a podiatrist in private practice in Agoura Hills and
Thousand Oaks. For more information call his office at (818) 707-3668 or (805)
497-6979.
Dear Lee,
I would be happy to get high resolution images (these or any from the web
site) if you can/would run them:
