Wednesday, September 13

Soterian and Eniwati Skin Grafts Start Friday


Dr Derek Allen checked the girls into P.Sinantar's Rumah Sakit Harapan (Hope Hospital) on the 4th of September and they are amongst the first patients scheduled for operations. A team of Dutch doctors and surgeons will be in the town for one month and so the girls will be able to have several operations each if all goes well.

While we were in the process of fund raising for surgery in Hawaii, Dr Allen (www.troppodoc.com) chanced into information that led him to the opportunity for free skin graft operations in North Sumatra and we have been able to accelerate the treatment schedule by months.

Thanks to all involved for your support to date. It is too early to know what treatment will cost for the 3 months we expect the girls to be in the hospital and the rehabilitation center. That should be clear after the doctors finish their first operations. The hospital charges for medicine and services will be Rp10,000,000 each and we are waiting for details of other costs.

Special thanks to I.A. volunteers Zach Shields and Chris Podell for their extraordinary contribution to the fund raising via their Webby Award winning website http://www.notseennotheard.com ......Along with other University Volunteer members, they helped raise $2,700 towards the skin graft operations and associated costs.

North West Medical / Island Aid volunteer Lisa Friesen has also worked hard for months to explore options for the girls in US hospitals and her family donations have given us a head start raising money for Dr Fasa's laptop.

Finally our thanks also to www.fundable.org for their donation service. We can recommend it for any fund raising event or project as a reliable, fast and inexpensive way to pool donations or contributions on-line.

We will soon be posting an new fund raiser for the purchase of a wi-fi laptop for Dr Fasa Laia in Gomo. The UN have set up a free internet hotspot at the local town administrators office only about 700m from his clinic.