Kaua‘i nurse Janette Wolff has been selected to participate in a medical mission to Cebu, Philippines, in mid-October, Rotary officials announced. Officials from Rotary’s Rotaplast International made the announcement. Rotaplast stands for Rotary plastic surgery, and is a partnership of
Kaua‘i nurse Janette Wolff has been selected to participate in a medical mission to Cebu, Philippines, in mid-October, Rotary officials announced.
Officials from Rotary’s Rotaplast International made the announcement.
Rotaplast stands for Rotary plastic surgery, and is a partnership of Rotary clubs designed to provide facial plastic surgery to indigent children in countries where surgery for cleft lips, palates and burns is unavailable to them.
In October, Wolff will join up in Manila with five other nurses, 10 doctors, two dentists and 10 Rotarian volunteers from all over Hawai‘i and the Mainland.
The group is called Cebu III, since this is the third and final Rotaplast mission to Cebu City, south of Manila. After ensuring that all equipment and personnel are safely in country, the assembled team will then travel on to Cebu. Cebu Rotarians are providing surgical facilities at Vicente Sotto Hospital in downtown Cebu. Wolff will carry the responsibility of running one of the three surgical suites.
More than 100 children are waiting for the team’s arrival.
Last October’s mission to Cebu saw surgery performed on 93 children. With faces that now look normal, the children no longer endure discrimination that prevented their full participation in their society. More importantly, they can now eat and speak like the other children.
That mission was financed completely by Hawai‘i Rotarians, while the cost of this upcoming mission will be shared by both Hawai‘i and California Rotarians.
The actual cost of sending the full medical team across the Pacific is $57,000. The total value of medical services provided by the mission is $553,400. That’s what it would cost for all the supplies, equipment and time of the doctors and nurses if done here in Hawai‘i, but those doctors and nurses donate their time, and Rotarians ensure that it all succeeds.
It will happen in the Philippines, and the medical standards are exactly the same as if done here.
For more information on the upcoming Cebu Rotaplast mission or to schedule a video presentation at your club or group, please contact D.Q. Jackson at 332-2981, or Laura Richards at 826-9571.
