I’ve just arrived home today from Vietnam after the most incredible week of my career.
Operation Walk is an amazing charity that gets surgical teams out to places of need, giving quality of life back to patients and their families. I was lucky enough to be able to join Operation Walk Ireland who travel to Vietnam to treat less fortunate people, often from rural areas, who were no longer able to care for their families or be looked after themselves due complex hip and knee problems.
Working with the best team I’ve ever met, we performed 58 hip and knee replacements this week.
We spent the first day reviewing every single patient , speaking to them via a team of interpreters and planning their operations . Many of these patients had very advanced and often neglected arthritis.
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These are of some of the loveliest, gentlest patients I’ve ever treated. One was a lady who’d had a terrible life as a victim of Dioxin – “Agent Orange” 50 years ago . She hadn’t walked for over a year , being carried on a contraption built by her husband, due to severe arthritis in both her knees. We performed simultaneous knee replacements on both sides. The pictures show her deformities pre and post op as well as her walking for the first time
Many patients were previously completely unable to walk more than a few metres due to conditions that destroyed their hip joints. It was an absolute joy to see them walking again on ward.
We were a large team including surgeons, anaesthetists, ward and theatre nurses, operating department assistants, physiotherapists, logistics assistants, sterile supplies personnel , interpreters, implant industry representatives, and a variety of people including a raft of Vietnamese volunteers who all worked selflessly and tirelessly to ensure everything ran smoothly.
In fact, the organisation of this mission was simply incredible – getting everyone in the right place at the right time, dealing with visas, transport, interpreters, catering, and then to work with unfamiliar surroundings, people and language and for all to go so smoothly, and to get so much work done, was a testament to the Operation Walk Ireland directors. Although it was tiring, it was an absolute joy to work with some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Everyone had given up their free time and raised funds to do this.
It was also an opportunity to help train young Vietnamese surgeons who were actually very skilled, enthusiastic and a pleasure to work with.
Thank you to everyone who sponsored me to make this trip. I can assure you from the bottom of my heart that every penny was well spent and has made the world of difference to some pretty deprived people and their families who would never have had access to this kind of healthcare.
We were all absolutely exhausted at the end – but would do it all again in a heartbeat!
I left Hanoi, very emotional, tired but elated, with great new friends and a renewed sense of purpose.
It could not have happened without your support and I cannot express how much that means.
Thank you so much
Tim
You can read more about Operation Walk Ireland here