Dr. Seth Greenky and Kim Murray recently spoke with News Channel 9 about the upcoming trip:
DEWITT, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Doctors from Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists are heading overseas with a mission to change lives.
Operation Walk New York is sending a team to Ghana this month to provide free joint replacement surgeries for patients who otherwise wouldn’t have access to care.
Local surgeons, nurses, physical therapists and volunteers plan to spend more than a week in Ghana. Their mission is to help patients who suffer from painful hip and knee conditions.
“There’s a huge number of patients that we will be seeing and screening and we actually had to cut off the list,” Kim Murray, clinical and operations director for Operation Walk New York, said, “because right now we have 375 patients that we’re going to be screening.”
The surgeons are trying to give free hip and knee replacements for patients living with severe joint pain. Many of the patients that will be operated on are accident victims, but a large majority suffer from sickle cell disease, with damage starting at an early age.
“The cells clot more easily and so what happens is they disrupt the vascular supply to the hip and the femoral head or ball of the hip sort of dies and collapses,” Dr. Seth Greenky, orthopedic surgeon, said.
Many are unable to walk or work without surgery.
“In the recovery room when they take their first steps on the floor, I mean they’re crying,” Greenky said.
Something as simple as a hip replacement could change their life.
“They go back to where they live and they just get better. It literally is the most life changing event in their entire life,” the surgeon said.
The team leaves Oct. 9, and expect to return on Oct. 18. Their goal is to perform 100 knee and hip replacement surgeries over the course of four days.