During the past 60 hours over 20 Haitian children in Port-au-Prince received some of the best medical care from Dr. John Ragheb and his visiting team from Miami Children’s Hospital. Pediatric Neurosurgeons Dr. Ragheb and Dr. Bhatia, also of Miami Children’s accompanied by a 7th year resident started performing surgery on children with Hydrocephalus just 3 hours after landing in Haiti this past Sunday. With the post-op and outreach support of Healing Hands Haiti and Project Medishare and the logistical support of Norwich Mission House Dr. Ragheb’s team of 19 performed third vetriculostomy surgeries, a procedure with an 80% success rate on most of the children they saw.

Hydrocephalus is a congenital disease that affects 2 out of every 1000 births. In most places, shortly after birth, a somewhat simple operation allows a child a greater chance at a normal life. That is rarely the case in Haiti; instead the cerebrospinal fluid CSF that flows normally through a healthy baby is blocked or unabsorbed creating pressure on the brain causing severe damage and eventually death.

This visit is part of a greater goal of Dr. Ragheb and all the partners involved which is to have a rotating team of surgeons visiting Haiti to learn from the medical community, train competent Haitian surgeons to perform third vetriculostomy surgery in Haiti and to educate the population about the importance of detecting and addressing this condition in its early stages. It is obvious from the number of patients that came to the hospital these past few days (more than were scheduled or previously assessed by the post-op team) that the outreach efforts and the work of Dr. Ragheb’s team have reached the level of “teledjol” in English “word of mouth” which in Haiti is a true measure of success.

Haiti Innovation congratulates the team and encourages those of you who would like to learn more about Hydrocephalus or to support the teams' efforts to visit www.projectmedishare.org.