Overview
A brighter future starts with access to healthcare: Construction of a leading hospital and comprehensive medical clinic in Ethiopia Training for local medical staff in neo-natal resuscitation, keeping newborn babies alive Quarterly U.S. medical missions to train Ethiopian doctors and nurses, bring critical supplies and equipment and provide life-saving medical procedures Community involvement of traditional birth attendants and mid-wives to improve outcomes for new mothers. Wide Horizons for Children (WHFC) continues to support highly successful medical missions to Ethiopia. Teams of skilled, dedicated professionals travel to the Sidama and Tigray regions to work side-by-side with their Ethiopian counterparts, providing training in a range of life-saving techniques. These teams perform surgeries in medical facilities that are vastly under-resourced, train local physicians and nurses on updated medical practices, bring necessary equipment and supplies to severely under-equipped health facilities, and visit rural communities to train traditional birth attendants and community health workers. While the focus is to meet immediate health care needs, we know that regular access to surgical services, training and equipment will encourage Ethiopian physicians to remain in public hospitals which have been a real challenge, since pay scales are much higher outside the country and at private facilities. The first medical mission was spearheaded by WHFC adoptive dad Dr. Fletcher Wilson and Dr. Stephan Coffman in November 2008. On subsequent missions, our teams of volunteer doctors have performed more than 1,000 surgeries. They have also spent countless hours teaching life-saving techniques such as neonatal resuscitation. On future trips, medical teams will work to improve access to iodine. Thousands of Ethiopians suffer from goiters (enlarged thyroid gland) due to iodine deficiencies. As a result, many children are born with mental retardation.