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| News & Events |
| March 10, 2010 |
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| Grenada gets Local Help |
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Area doctors share expertise on island 
By Nancy A. Fischer
NEWS NIAGARA REPORTER
Published: March 09, 2010, 12:30 am
The Buffalo News
The Caribbean island of Grenada has one urologist who serves an entire country of about 100,000 people.
That’s not enough for all of those suffering from prostate cancer and other conditions, which is why three Western New Yorkers recently stepped in to help.
Urologist surgeons Drs. Juan De- Rosas of Lockport and Nagui Adeeb, chief of surgery at Medina Memorial Hospital, and certified nurse anesthesiologist Julie Harrington, also of Lockport, traveled to the island last month to perform surgeries and train medical staff.
The visit, part of the Martha E. Johnson Foundation’s surgical assistance program, took place Feb. 5 to 14 and also was supported with a grant from the CCS Oncology Center, which has offices in Lockport and Kenmore.
The doctors continue to provide help and consultations online now that they are back home.
“It was wonderful,” DeRosas said. “Dr. Eric Johnson invited me on the trip, and it went very, very well. I was surprised since it was a different country, but it was very rewarding and quite worth it. It felt great that I was able to help and it was an honor. I would definitely like to be invited again.”
DeRosas said the medical team performed cancer surgeries and helped train the only urologist on the island, Dr. Robert Yearwood, in advanced urological procedures.
They performed Grenada’s first urological laser procedure, a photovaporization of enlarged prostate tissue.
Johnson said that by getting a company to donate a laser, which can cost $100,000, patients can be provided with surgery that will send them home the same day, instead of spending three days in the hospital.
Adeeb called the experience “wonderful.” He said he performed the island’s first ureteroscopy, a procedure that removes kidney stones without the need for an incision.
“They were very receptive and we were very well received,” Adeeb said.
He said the three had some time to vacation, doing some kayaking and scuba diving.
Johnson, 49, a general surgeon at Medina Memorial, said a cruise to the Caribbean in the 1990s began his mission to help Grenada. During the past 13 years, he has invited other doctors to donate their time and expertise there.
“My thought has always been if everybody just did a little bit, you’d get a lot done,” said Johnson, who every year travels to the country with doctors, surgical equipment and donated operating room supplies. One year, his team even brought 100 hospital beds from a closed nursing home to help furnish a new hospital.
“It seemed to me that we wasted more stuff in a day in our hospitals than they wasted in a month,” he said. “We take it for granted. Put on a pair of scrubs, gowns, roll ’em up and throw them out. In a country where they don’t have [as much], it’s quite different.”
After at first donating equipment and supplies, doctors decided to make the next step and offer surgeries.
“First we just did some laparoscopic surgery,” said Johnson, referring to a technique that uses small incisions aided by a camera. “No one really thought we could pull it off, but we did eight. We didn’t take over the operating room. Our idea was to work with them so in two or three years they could learn from our people. They were used to having people just do for them.”
The Martha E. Johnson Foundation was established 15 years ago, according to Johnson, to help underserved countries, and has been helping Grenada’s medical community in St. Georges, the capital city, for the last 13 years.
Last year, the foundation took an orthopedic team to Grenada, performing the first uncemented total hip replacement surgery, performed by Dr. Joseph Buran of Amherst, which allowed a woman to walk normally for the first time since an accident in 1980.
Future plans include total knee replacements next year and a cardiology/urology program in the near future.
Anyone wishing to donate to the foundation can contact Johnson directly in Medina at (585) 637-6120. In September, those involved in the program plan will have a golf tournament to benefit the foundation at Brockport Country Club.
nfischer@buffnews.com
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