Healing the Children: 12,000 kids get help, but group faces new challenges
By , on August 27, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Source
Helen Salan’s files are filled with smiling faces - the pictures of the many children helped by Healing the Children of Michigan and Ohio.
There’s Marie, who was severely burned during an earthquake in Haiti, wearing a pretty yellow dress and flowers in her hair. Amelia, from Liberia, is dancing with joy as she reunites with her mother after heart surgery.
Katlynee, from Guatemala, smiles as she prepares to go home with a prosthetic eye – after she was treated for fireworks injuries. Devandra, a laughing baby boy, came from Guyana to correct a birth defect that caused his bladder to form outside his abdomen.
In many cases, the before-and-after pictures show a dramatic change – tiny children grow strong, burn scars are repaired, club feet are straightened.
In the past 21 years, Salan has overseen an organization that has provided medical care to more than 12,000 children. Most received treatment in their home countries, provided by 103 medical teams that have donated their time.
About 1,000 children have come to Michigan and Ohio for medical care. The Grand Rapids-based chapter has volunteer coordinators helping to arrange services in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Holland, Lansing, Detroit, Kalamazoo, Toledo and Cincinnati.
“This is just so rewarding,” Salan said. “There’s a lot of joy. It’s good inner wealth for the soul.”
Arranging donated care has become more difficult over the years, Salan said. As more doctors become employed by hospitals, getting approval is more complicated.
Helen Salan
“The changing picture of the health care system makes it more difficult to get kids accepted (for treatment),” she said.
And most of the children who come to the U.S. for treatment have complex medical needs, and they often need to stay for several months. However, she said she still finds many doctors eager to help. And she rarely has a problem finding a host family to care for a child.
The local chapter has helped children from 61 countries, with most coming from Central and South America.
Healing the Children also provides services to U.S. kids who need services not covered by insurance or Medicaid. Through a partnership with Faces for the Future, it helps children with cleft lips or palates. And it also has helped American kids who need vision enrichment services, glasses, wheelchairs or dental care. In some cases, Healing the Children refers families to programs that will provide help.
But the primary focus is on children in other countries who have no care available, Salan said.
The organization operates on a $200,000 annual budget that is provided largely through donations from individuals, churches and community groups. An annual golf outing is the major fundraiser.
The only paid staff members are Salan, who works full-time, and a part-time assistant. Everyone else involved is a volunteer. Physicians and hospitals donate time or services. Families provide homes and support for the children during their stay - often for many months. American Airlines donates plane tickets for the children; and airline employees volunteer as escorts on their days off.
“There’s a real sense of wanting to help,” Salan said. “And it’s a phenomenal feeling.”
The Michigan-Ohio chapter is one of 12 Healing the Children chapters in the U.S. It started in 1984, and Salan became director in 1992.
From a small office in Kentwood, she makes the connections that bring together those in need with those who want to help.
That often involves long, complex negotiations with doctors and officials in other countries to arrange the paperwork, and finding liaisons who can communicate with families in remote areas.
In the case of Roselore, a 7-year-old from a remote mountainous region in Haiti, it can take years.
Four years ago, a church group from Indiana met Roselore, who has a heart defect called patent ductus arteriosus, or PDA. She needs surgery to correct an opening between the major blood vessels in her heart. The church group worked three years to get her a birth certificate and a passport – a process that was disrupted by the 2010 earthquake.
The group contacted Healing the Children a year ago. Salan made arrangements for a visa and found a doctor, hospital and host family in Ann Arbor to care for Roselore.
But then she was stymied this month by something unexpected: Not a single open seat was available in late August on a plane out of Haiti, because so many people were returning to the U.S. for the start of the school year.
Salan ultimately had to postpone Roselore’s surgery a little longer - arranging for her to take a flight Sept. 2. She also lined up an organization to care for her in Port-au-Prince until she could make the trip.
The delay was frustrating, but Salan dealt with it the way she always does: She thought of Roselore.
“That’s what keeps me going. You just keep focused on the kid,” Salan said.
Sue Thoms covers health care for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.