Rockford doctor, assistant return from Haitian mission

ROCKFORD — A medical team that included Dr. Anthony Sorkin and certified physician’s assistant Michael Karg of Rockford Orthopedic Associates that was on a mission last week to perform surgery on Haitian earthquake victims aided a hospital in the Dominican Republic that was being pushed past its limits.

“They had exhausted nearly all of their resources dealing with the initial wave of Haitian refugees,” Sorkin said today of conditions at Dario Contreras Hospital in Santo Domingo. “Many of the Haitians had already been treated before we got there, meaning the initial large influx, but there was still a great number of patients on the first level of the hospital and some refugees were shipped in from a border town, and they were just sitting there waiting for some intervention.”

Sorkin said he and Karg, who has worked with Sorkin for nine years, performed 45 procedures and treated 67 fractures Tuesday through Saturday morning.

Because of the large number of cases and the Haitians’ inability to pay, several without an exceptional need for treatment had been left in traction until the U.S. medical mission arrived, he said.

“That’s not a knock on the Dominican system,” Sorkin said. “It’s just the reality of their world. What made our mission different from some others was we brought our own equipment with us. Many surgeons have run down to the Dominican to help out, but without their own equipment, and that makes it an exceptional challenge to do anything productive.”

Sorkin said Stryker Orthopedics, which organized the mission, donated millions of dollars worth of plates, screws, rods and external fixation equipment “and that allowed us to be much more productive.”

He said the biggest challenge was lack of resources. The only anesthesia available was a spinal anesthesia which, Sorkin said, has various levels of success in numbing the legs. Also, there were no X-ray machines available during surgery to help doctors see where the fractures were, and there were only two sterilizing machines to serve eight operating rooms.

Sorkin, who said before he left that he accepted the invitation to join the mission only if he could commit to follow-up, said plans have been started for at least some of the 15 people who joined the mission to return in about eight weeks.

“That, of course, requires people to donate more of their time, and we need a company like Stryker to donate more equipment,” he said. “It’s a tremendous undertaking and the logistics are overwhelming to get equipment through customs and into the hospital.”

Staff writer Mike DeDoncker can be reached at 815-987-1382 or mdedoncker@rrstar.com.