Unheralded

JIM DURKIN: Minnesota To The Philippines — Surgeons Use MASH Experience To Complete 55 Major Surgeries In Two Days

As surgeons sliced a volleyball-sized tumor from the tummy of one anesthetized woman, another team of doctors about 10 feet across the room tied the tubes of another. In the room next door, teams fixed cleft palates on a pair of youngsters.

Privacy, smivacy. Patients who have come to get help from the American doctors with the Philippine Minnesotan Medical Association are not concerned about private rooms and personal care. They have often waited for years to get much-needed help, and their priorities are different. Nowhere is that more evident than the surgical care unit.

Naomi Quillopa has done 80 to 90 medical missions around the world in the past 25 years and often works with the same doctors.
Naomi Quillopa has done 80 to 90 medical missions around the world in the past 25 years and often works with the same doctors.

Under the direction of team leader and coordinator Naomi Quillopa, 55, the doctors are a paradigm in organization and professionalism. They work swiftly and efficiently.

“They’re seasoned surgical missionaries,” said Quillopa, who has done 80 to 90 medical missions around the world in the past 25 years and often works with the same doctors.

“We have not had any complications. We have done this numerous, numerous times, and we are used to doing things on a routine basis, the same as we do back home. It prevents us from running into trouble.”

Siobhan Lyons, of Faribault, Minn., tries to wake up a patient who was in the recovery room following surgery. Lyons is a nurse at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.
Siobhan Lyons, of Faribault, Minn., tries to wake up a patient who was in the recovery room following surgery. Lyons is a nurse at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

That says a lot, considering the Mariveles District Hospital is in the midst of being rebuilt and is being used for the first time by the 100 mission volunteers from Minnesota. It previously was an education building that had fallen into total disrepair after sitting empty for years.

“All of the missions I’ve done have been very unique in their own way,” Quillopa said. “This one is particularly interesting in that we’re coming into an empty shell. The electricity and water were just started about three days before we came.

Doctors remove a volleyball-sized tumor from a patient Tuesday afternoon at Mariveles District Hospital.
Doctors remove a volleyball-sized tumor from a patient Tuesday afternoon at Mariveles District Hospital.

“It’s not even done being reconstructed yet. Here we are with this MASH unit and we turned it into a hospital in a day. After 24 hours here we are doing surgery and we continue to do it the best way we know how.”

Quillopa has 45 people, including eight surgeons, under her watch. The unit has three operating rooms, which are divided into gynecology, plastic surgery and ear, nose and throat. They have dealt with hysterectomies, tumor removals, burn scar reconstructions, cleft lips and palates, goiter as well as a handful of other issues.

Twenty major surgeries were performed Monday and that increased to 33 on Tuesday during a 12-hour shift. The surgical team and those who worked in the recovery room were there long after others had left Tuesday night.

“These missions are never about us,” said Quillopa, who worked for years in the burn unit at Regions Hospital in St. Paul before quitting to become a fulltime taxi driver for her kids. “It’s all about the people we serve.

“It’s not about numbers, it’s not about money, it’s not about politics. It’s about providing services to people who otherwise could not get them because they don’t have the means.”

Kristen Schneider tends to a toddler in the pediatric ward as the baby's mother looks on.
Kristen Schneider tends to a toddler in the pediatric ward as the baby’s mother looks on.

Each mission holds special memories, and the one that tops her list this year happened early in the week. A family from Mindanao, an island more than 600 miles south of Mariveles, brought two children for surgery. There was a 5-year-old girl with a cleft palate and a 3-year-old boy with a cleft lip and palate. A social worker helped them make the trip.

Doctors perform surgery on a cleft palate.
Doctors remove a volleyball-sized tumor from a woman’s stomach.

 

“These are folks who never would have been able to get them surgery because the area where they come from rarely receives surgical missionaries such as us because it’s a very unstable island politically,” Quillopa said.

“They are very, very poor, but were willing to make the sacrifice because they wanted what was best for their children.

“You don’t forget people like that.”




One thought on “JIM DURKIN: Minnesota To The Philippines — Surgeons Use MASH Experience To Complete 55 Major Surgeries In Two Days”

  • Therese February 2, 2016 at 7:58 pm

    Wonderful work. Keep telling us about this great group.

    Reply

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