'A New Year, a New Life'

This was how Jonathan Benedict Buan started his e-mail of thanks to the good Samaritans who gave him a new lease on life. As 2011 opens its doors, I thought it fitting to share this story with you, and his e-mail:

“Dear Rotarians and “Operating Room on Wheels” Mission Donors,

I would like to thank the Rotary Club and all of you who have supported the “Operating Room on Wheels” surgical missions.

I am one of the recipients of your “Operating Room on Wheels” missions. It has been nine months since I had undergone surgery under local anesthesia to remove the large cancer tumor at the back of my head. I’m fine now, able to sleep, work and have gained weight. You are an instrument of God to helpless people like me. You have given us hope and new life.

On behalf of my family and the many people that you have served, thank you very much.

Happy New Year and more power. God bless you all…(special thanks to Dr. Jim Sanchez and family).”

Benedict is only one of the many Filipinos who have been touched by the healing hands of a dedicated and deeply talented local surgeon who has pioneered in local anesthesia for surgical cases that would have necessitated more extensive anesthetic procedures and costly and long hospital confinements. As a brief backgrounder, Dr. Jim Sanchez, one of our more renowned cosmetic surgeons in the country, has explored and mastered the use of local and peripheral nerve anesthesia as a safe and viable option for various surgical cases. He has since gone on speaking engagements here and abroad, sharing his knowledge with the more advanced foreign surgeons who were glad to adopt his technique because it was less costly, had less down time and less risk.

An active member of the Rotary Club of San Francisco del Monte, the organization supported Doc Jim’s mission forays, providing infrastructure for the monthly medical missions for cases like cleft palates, hernias, tumors and similar external surgeries. Then the idea of a mobile operating room hit the kind doctor. If you know Jim, this guy never sleeps on an idea. He will pursue a dream, even if the odds are stacked against him. Researching on the costs, he knew that it would be too much for one man, but spread out among other people who share the dream, he would see fruition.

And yes, the Operating Room on Wheels is this dream, and many of our kababayans helped realize this dream. Starting off with the Rotary organization, Jim’s classmates based in the US who gathered what they could like used operating room lights, sutures, equipment, supplies, name it. These Pinoy doctors and friends sourced whatever they could and shipped them here, and Jim started building his mobile operating room.

It has been on the road for over three years now, putting a new smile on under-privileged children with cleft palates and getting tearful hugs from grateful parents and families, completing 30 missions all over Luzon, benefitting over 3,000 patients. I sat through a short video of one of Jim’s medical missions and saw how, in one afternoon in Norzagaray, Bulacan, he operated on several very young boys with hernia in his mobile O.R. dubbed DOCS (Doctors Offering Care & Services) Surgical Van using only local anesthesia, a first in the country, and after the last stitch, the little boy just stood up from the bed, was led away by his parents after a quick thank you, and boarded a tricycle like nothing happened. You wouldn’t guess that he just had a hernia operation watching him walk away, as Jim ushered in a new patient, all of them between six to 11 years old.      

 And always, the recipients were those in the marginalized sectors who couldn’t afford the costly surgery. An Herniotomy would easily cost P60,000 for private cases and P10,000 for charity cases. Using local anesthesia only, costs are sharply cut down by half, between P20,000 – P30,000 for private cases and P3,000 for charity. Rotary’s extensive network facilitated a lot of the work involved, including the screening of applicants, and others helped extensively like the Philippine Children’s Medical Center, Channel 7’s Gawad Kapuso Program, Norzagaray Municipal Hospital and the local government, and the PiNoy Doctors Inc. When Benedict approached Jim, he was at the end of the road, or at least saw his case that way. He could not eat, could not sleep because of the huge cancerous tumor double the size of a fist at the back of his head, couldn’t work, was skin and bones, and penniless. The Operating Room on Wheels was his last resort.

There are many remarkable things about Benedict’s case. For one thing, it is unheard of to operate on a large cancerous tumor using local anesthesia only and pulling it off successfully, and painlessly. For another, it’s been nine months and miraculously, there has been no recurrence. Benedict can now eat and sleep and work for a living, risen from the dead and now a functional human being.

For the 3,000 miracles that DOCS Surgical Van has reaped on several unfortunate afflicted people, the Filipino people have reason to rejoice. It’s been around for over three years now, but you don’t hear trumpets. Not that Doc Jim, his volunteer health workers and the Rotary Club need it, but building a full operating room on wheels and having regular medical missions require a whole lot of logistical support. If one had to buy a brand new equipped mobile O.R., it would cost at least P5 million, so Doc Jim is thankful for the kind and resourceful souls who chipped in to make this dream come true. But there are still so many needy patients who cannot afford hospital confinement and costly surgeries across the more than 7,000 islands we have. The next dream is for more volunteer doctors and nurses, and mercifully two or three more DOCS Surgical Vans for Visayas and Mindanao and one for the 1,800 Gawad Kalinga Villages, for starters. They can be just simple vans that he can slowly equip, because the lone one that he operates now is a humongous container van that is laborious to lug around. This next dream could be the symbol of hope to more needy Filipinos. Jim subscribes to what Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.  

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