RESTOR International has continued to sponsor surgeries every year, even though our on site missions have occurred every other year. We have been collaborating with Dr. Einar Ericksen, a Norwegian plastic surgeon, who spent his youth growing up in Ethiopia as a son of missionary parents. He returns to Ethiopia every year for several months as one of the few plastic surgeons in that country who specializes in burn contracture repairs. His work is mostly through his charity called the “Children’s Burn and Wound Foundation.”
We invited Dr. Eriksen to attend our first mission to the Gamby Hospital and share his burn repair expertise with our plastic surgeons. In Canada, our plastic surgeons see “fresh burns” and the treatment and surgery is significantly different than in Ethiopia. If a burn is left untreated, which is usually the case in Ethiopia, horrific contractures can form over the years, which are disfiguring and disabling.
During our three missions to the Gamby Hospital, our plastic surgeons have repaired burn contractures, our nurses have trained the Gamby nurses in post operative care and we have trained Dr. Daniels, a general surgeon, to perform some of the less complicated surgeries.
RESTOR has contracted Dr. Ericksen to perform more surgeries in our absence. He visits the Gamby Teaching Hospital and performs these surgeries with Dr. Daniels. Some surgeries are very complicated requiring Dr. Ericksen to operate at the Korean Hospital in Addis Ababa .
Your donations fund local as well as more complex surgeries, so your financial support continues to work to transform the lives of children and young adults, even in our absence.
Dr. Ericksen will be coming to the Gamby Hospital in the next few months again and RESTOR International will sponsor additional surgeries.