Dr. Mario Sequiera appointed as miraclefeet Medical Director in Nicaragua
Chesca, miraclefeet’s Executive Director, and Roger Berman, Chairman of the miraclefeet Board were recently in Managua, visiting miraclefeet’s program at Hospital Velez Paiz. The clubfoot clinic is run by Dr. Mario Sequeira and treats over 90 children using the Ponseti Method. Dr. Sequeira is seeing a lot of older neglected clubfoot cases and getting remarkable results with children as old as 10 years old who have never been treated. He is also increasingly seeing newborn babies so word is getting out that treatment is available for free at his miraclefeet Velez Paiz clinic.
A large part of our trip involved working with Dr. Sequeira to determine how we can develop a national program with additional clinics and support for families who need to travel long distances to get treatment. In three days, we were able to develop a plan, reach agreement with two new hospitals and identify ways we can raise awareness that clubfoot is a treatable condition.
Dr. Sequiera will be appointed miraclefeet Medical Director in Nicaragua and will manage the initial expansion until a local coordinator can be hired. Dr. Jose Morcuende, Medical Director of Ponseti International will provide additional training in Leon for orthopedic surgeons from Leon, Esteli and Juigalpa. This will be followed up with miraclefeet financial and organizational support for three new clinics. We were also able to identify a local orthotics and prosthetics workshop that have agreed to make clubfoot foot abduction braces at a lower cost than the currently available braces. In the meantime, miraclefeet is sending recycled braces and braces purchased in Kenya and Bangladesh to fill the short-term need for low cost, quality braces. We will continue to provide funding for Dr. Sequeira to order larger sizes from the local provider since large braces are harder to obtain elsewhere.
This is an exciting development and a strong indicator that miraclefeet’s approach of empowering local doctors to solve the issue of clubfoot in their own country works. miraclefeet is confident that, with these new clinics, Dr. Sequeira and miraclefeet will be able to develop the capacity to treat every child born with clubfoot in Nicaragua over the course of the next three years.
