Volunteer doctors set out on mercy mission

Marisa O’Neil

Under a canvas canopy set outside an inconspicuous storage unit

Saturday afternoon, a team of doctors and nurses started preparations

for a trip that will change the lives of more than 100 people in

India.

Volunteer members of the Huntington Beach-based Plasticos

Foundation will leave Jan. 23 to work in a hospital outside Bombay,

helping to correct children’s birth defects, repair cleft palates and

provide whatever medical help they can.

Though the trip was planned long before the huge Dec. 26 tsunami

affected other regions of the country, the surgeons,

anesthesiologists and nurses -- who travel with practically an entire

operating room -- are willing to help any way they can, said Ruth Ann

Burns, who is coordinating the trip.

“We’re just not sure what they’ll want us to do,” she said.

“But we’re ready and capable.”

Burns’ husband, surgeon Robert Burns, as well as surgeons Jed

Horowitz and Newport Beach doctor Larry Nichter will travel in a team

of 20, including staff members of Hoag and Long Beach Memorial

hospitals.

Plasticos usually makes two trips a year to third-world countries,

including one in 2003 to Macas, Ecuador, which was chronicled in the

Daily Pilot. A trip to Cuba is being planned for later this year.

The team hopes to help 150 or more people in the two weeks they’ll

be in the town of Pune, India, Horowitz said.

Because of the disaster, they may treat more adults than they

normally would and perhaps save seriously injured limbs that would

otherwise be amputated, Robert Burns said.

In addition to their surgical skills, they plan to bring extra

antibiotics and supplies to treat the cholera and typhoid that may

hit the region.

They also bring their own sterilizers, anesthesia machines and

other medical necessities the hospital lacks.

“We’re like a MASH unit,” said Horowitz, who is affiliated with

Hoag hospital, among others.

All the equipment and supplies need to be packed into the two

suitcases allotted to each traveler.

That means each person can pack about one-quarter of one suitcase

with his or her personal belongings and clothes, Robert Burns said.

Besides treating patients, they will train doctors and staff at

the hospital in Pune to do many of the procedures on their own,

Horowitz said.

“It’s great to take care of the immediate needs,” he said.

“After we go, we want that to keep going on. Our foundation

mission is to no longer be needed.”

The trip, like all others the team takes, is funded through

donations -- this one by Huntington Beach residents Joan and Vince

Ruh.

An average trip costs between $40,000 and $50,000, Horowitz said.

Each person who goes along volunteers his or her time and

services.

Many of the nurses going use their vacation time from work to go

on the trip and help those in need.

“It’s hard work,” Ruth Ann Burns said.

“But when you do it, you get chills. There’s nothing else I’d

rather do.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618.