ISMS

The initial journey of the ISMS Operation Kids began when the nineteen member volunteer medical team stepped foot on the Mamounia Hospital floor. As the team surfaced out of the buses they realized that hundreds of people were waiting, all desperate for the medical team to help their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and cousins. With only a week to operate, the team embraced the crowd of hundreds and immediately starting the triage process. The ordeal began with each child being examined, hearing each child’s story of suffering, and having to decide who would be chosen for surgery.

Prepared to help those children needing plastic, pediatric, and orthopedic surgeries along with trauma cases and consultations from our hematologist oncologist for children with hemophilia, the team was able to perform 58 surgical cases: 15 cleft-lip palate repairs, 8 varied plastic surgeries, 18 orthopedic cases - varied fracture repairs, tendon releases, and closed reductions - 17 general pediatric surgeries - varied orchiopexy and hernia repairs. Also, 6 general pediatric consults, 6 hemophilia consults, and 4 walk in traumas. Dr. Victor Valda, a pediatric surgeon who performed essential and successful operations on many children, Dr. James Tucci, an orthopedic surgeon, also performed miraculous surgeries under challenging conditions. Dr. Cindy Steel, a hematologist oncologist examined children with hemophilia, and presented a lecture to Moroccan physicians and pre-med students relevant to the disease.

However, the team was forced to turn away many families whose children's cases were to advanced or intricate to operate on outside the United States. Stories of heartache and desperation such as: Nora, with badly burned face and hands, that needed tissue expanders for a successful outcome, was only able to receive partial treatment. A mother that carried her eleven-year-old daughter down the mountain on her back for help, only to find out that her daughter’s neurological problems were impossible for the team to rectify. With no other options, the mother settled her child upon her back and carried her up the mountain again.

The ISMS Operation Kids team also leaves behind the equipment and supplies that will help the local doctors to be self-sufficient with ongoing medical care.