Cuenca 2015 Home
Welcome once again to TNMS Team Cuenca's Blog. We are ready to go!
Packed - 33 hockey bags and 19 instrument totes: total approximate weight 2500 lbs!!
As one of our team members commented - we arrive like this & within hours out pops a hospital...as we take all of our own instruments, medical surgical supplies , clinic & ward supplies.
Contents of all the hockey bags and totes, everything brought from Canada, including shelving units which are assembled on location
Mission 2015 Blog

Final farewell
(More pictures will be added soon…) All surgeries are complete by early afternoon on Wednesday and some of the doctors/surgeons offer teaching seminars to medical students on floor 5 of the hospital (orthopedics, anesthesiology, and oncology are the topics). As well, CPR has been rescheduled from Thursday am to Wednesday 1pm for the approximate 60 […]

Potential to expand
Dr. Temple travelled to Mount Sinai Hospital today and has been asked to assist an oncology surgeon with a rare tumor surgery – Diana Aspe Ayer, Interpreter is indispensable to him and the hospital is very happy to have his expertise. They request that he attend the mission next year and there will be patients […]

More volunteers means more benefits!
Daily breakfast meeting: Instrument processing has lots of help, anesthesia has a 3rd anesthesiologist rotating through two OR’s this year – helps us keep up with drug orders and allows anesthesiologists to do pre-op and post-op assessments with patients. As well, this frees Anesthesiologist, Dr. Fermor for training and education sessions with local medical students. […]

Tugging on our heartstrings
AM Meeting: Dr. Powell describes Saturday as the ‘Best first day surgery in 9 yrs’ – everything went very well in the O.R.’s. General volunteers report that they really appreciate veterans of the mission. They are patient and willing to teach the newcomers. Orthopedic fellows and orthopedic resident say the first day in surgery was […]

Full speed ahead!
Today begins with a 6:30 breakfast meeting and a brief outline of the charity’s history from Dr. Powell – now on his 9th mission to Ecuador – a few missions were with another group before the charity was initiated. He makes special note of one reason he was drawn to service the poor in Ecuador: […]

The journey begins!
The journey to Cuenca begins with a 3 1/2 hr flight from Calgary to Houston, a short afternoon layover, followed by a 5:35 pm flight from Houston to Quito, Ecuador. Arrival time to Quito is approximately 11:30pm local time: 2 hrs ahead of Calgary. Two main groups have travelled via the same flight plan: one on Feb 25 and […]