HILARY HOSIA
At the beginning of the month, 23 Canvasback Missions OBGYN specialists departed Majuro to the US after seeing 567 patients.
Then last week, 20 more miracle workers arrived in Majuro, only this time on an orthopedic visit that, as of Monday, screened 187 patients with 19 completed surgeries out of 31 scheduled operations.
Since word of the bone doctors spread, Ebeye hospital referred three patients. One was 88-year old Mauro Hazzard.
Despite his age, Mauro lived healthy and had no difficulty walking. His daughter jokingly told the Journal “he’d walk everywhere — at times we thought of calling 911 to find his whereabouts when he doesn’t show up late in the night.”
But that all changed when Mauro fractured his hip that confined him to his hospital bed.
Elson Helkena, an avid Journal reader and a vocal member on social media recently suffered from an internal pain in his left knee joint. He had a successful total knee arthroscopy (ATL) procedure Tuesday.
Elson’s surgery lasted two hours and his nurse said in two months time, Elson would walk as if there was no surgery.
Mauro on the other hand, underwent a hemiarthroplasty on his right hip Monday evening, when doctors placed a metallic device to help with bone movement.
Both Mauro and Elson are expected to walk without assistance in the near future.
Read more about this in the March 23, 2018 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.