Providing Helping Hands in Ecuador
- Posted on: Feb 24 2015
Homayoun Sasson, MD, chief of plastic surgery at Franklin Hospital and Plainview Hospital, will be travelling to Ecuador with the team from Blanca’s House, a Long Island group that was founded in 2008.
Dr. Sasson has travelled to Ecuador previously with the same group. During that trip, each of the three physicians who went brought their own medical equipment to serve the population in and around Guayaquil. The North Shore-LIJ Health System donated some stretchers and beds to help Dr. Sasson and others serve this population.
“People begin to line up a day or two before we even arrive,” Dr. Sasson recalls. “People come from several miles to receive medical care.”
Though Dr. Sasson primarily performs plastic surgeries — such as correcting cleft lips and other severe facial or cranial deformities; burns; and hand deformities — while he is overseas, he also performs other procedures he is comfortable with. He performs a few hundred procedures typically during this week-long medical mission in Ecuador.
The experience of helping these people and oftentimes changing their lives touches Dr. Sasson. He treated one man who had a growth on his forehead and was ostracized by his community. The following year, this man came to the area Blanca’s House was working in to show his gratitude and talk about how this surgery changed his life.
“Making a difference in these people’s lives in as short as 15 minutes – that kind of experience is unmatched,” Dr. Sasson said.
Dr. Sasson anticipates that he will bring several North Shore-LIJ nurses, anesthesiologists, medical students and residents with him on this medical mission.
Tagged with: Ecuador
Posted in: Community
