In 2015, I joined Broken Earth as a volunteer anesthesiologist with Team Newfoundland. A few months later, I formed Team Barrie and have led three missions to Haiti in 2016, 2017 and 2018. You can view our past missions and follow future missions on our FB page ( https://www.facebook.com/tbe.barrie.5) There is still much work to do with our friends in Haiti and no fewer than 14 teams will travel there over the next year. Last year, Broken Earth expanded their mission work to include two missions to Guatemala. Teams Calgary and Vancouver have completed missions there in partnership with Partner for Surgery (partnerforsurgery.org).
In April, 2019, Team Barrie will travel to Guatemala City with a 22 member surgical team and help continue the work started by our western team mates. Over the course of 6 days we will conduct clinics and perform dozens of surgeries. We will undoubtedly encounter some different challenges than what we faced in Haiti. One particular challenge we have lies in the preparation prior to going. We need to secure supplies and equipment through donations or purchase. A large inventory had been built up in Haiti over the past 8 years from numerous teams travelling there. No such inventory exists in Guatemala... if we need it, we must bring it! Each team member is required to raise funds for their travel and the actual cost of operating on patients, in addition to the costs of purchasing various supplies.
To those of you who have donated to our cause in the past, I wholeheartedly thank you for you amazing generosity!! If you would like to donate to this cause this year, please click on "Sponsor Me". Our missions would not be possible without the generosity of our many donors...
