Over the years, our clinic has taken more of an international flavor. We’ve had patients come to us from at least 6 neighboring countries, and we get email consults from all over the globe, from people who find my website online. Manila, Lagos, Kathmandu – they all find us and send photos and x-rays for advice!
With the opening of the border with Eritrea, we have had over a dozen Eritreans visit us.
One of the most difficult was Binyam.
Binyam and his family traveled for several days from Asmara, Eritrea to Addis Ababa, in hopes of getting treated. His spine had been deforming for years, and local doctors had nothing to offer.
They walked into my office in late 2018, and asked for our help. We did a careful exam – he appeared to have idiopathic scoliosis, but quite a severe case. At age 10 his spine was shaped like an extended “S,” and he had lost 40% of his breathing capacity. Fortunately, his nervous system was intact. Without surgery, this would progress and he would meet an early death.
We started with a rigorous series of x-rays, CT scan, MRIs, and breathing tests. Quite an ordeal for a 10-year-old. With his family behind him, he was a star.
To me, he was a good candidate for ambulatory traction for several months, followed by “growing rods.” This would be a 5-year process, with periodic adjustments, and then final fusion surgery around age 15. I presented all the results to Dr. Boachie, who agreed with my conclusions.
Now the big question – funding. We did not have funds for Binyam’s care. I asked “Do you have any relatives abroad who might be able to help out?”
“For sure,” they replied, “he has an uncle in Minneapolis who is a pharmacist.
That weekend, I phoned Uncle Yonatan, and we discussed the situation. Yonatan replied “Dr. Rick – there is no question here. I will raise the money. You do the medicine, I’ll do the rest.”
Yonatan appealed to his church, his friends and neighbors, and the Eritrean community in America. I got emails from Eritreans to my website, doing due diligence, asking for confirmation of the story. “Yes, 100% true,” I replied.
We flew Binyam to Ghana last year. We moved him into lodging outside FOCOS Hospital, and he was reevaluated. He had a halo applied, then went into ambulatory traction for 4 months, before magnetic growing rod surgery.
He has healed well, and once airports reopen, we are happy to arrange for his ticket back to Addis Ababa.
It took an international effort, and the kindness of strangers, and Binyam’s life is being saved. We asked him “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “A pharmacist, like my uncle,” he replied immediately.