Local woman helps Nicaraguan boy get medical treatment

Kristina Serafini
Staff Writer
Thursday, May 24, 2007

Janet Foerster has spent much of the last 15 years working outside the United States.

As president of innerCHANGE Associate International, a Sewickley-based "cross-cultural consulting firm specializing in managing sustainable and culturally appropriate humanitarian development programs," she has lent a hand in improving the quality of life in many regions around the world, including setting up health clinics and service programs in Nicaragua.

But as project director for the Children, Health, Education and Supporting Services (CHESS) program, she, with the help of Children's Hospital, the United States Agency for International Development, western Pennsylvania rotary clubs and Gran Pacifica Beach and Golf Resort (a real estate development adjacent to Villa El Carmen which was founded by a Sewickley lawyer 12 years ago) had the opportunity to make a difference on a more personal level.

Through CHESS, a program which coordinates a variety of health care and educational opportunities for 12 schools and four health clinics in the Nicaraguan municipality of Villa El Carmen, Foerster met Miriam Araica and her 9-year-old grandson, Elkin Fonseca Zapata, who fell from a tree and severely damaged his trachea a year and a half earlier. After the accident, Zapata received an emergency tracheotomy at a hospital in Nicaragua to save his life, but has since been required to live with a metal tube in his throat.

Living in poverty, Foerster said, Araica and Zapata had no other options for health care. They couldn't afford the type of reconstructive surgery the young boy needed even if it was available to them.

Hearing about the young boy's accident, Foerster said the Rotary Club sent money for Zapata to be examined in Managua and Children's Hospital donated several breathing devices which she brought to Nicaragua in January when she made the trip for a Gran Pacifica meeting.

At that same meeting, Foerster met a pediatric surgeon from Children's Hospital, Dr. Edward Barksdale, who she later arranged to meet with Zapata at his small countryside home built around dirt floors that lacked running water and electricity. There, he has lived with his four brothers and grandmother since his mother died of cancer three years earlier at the age of 26.

Foerster said the tracheal rebuilding Barksdale determined Zapata needed was one only a few physicians in the United States could perform. One of those qualified surgeons happened to be at Children's.

Upon returning from his trip to Nicaragua, Barksdale went to the CEO of the hospital to discuss Zapata's situation and to see if he could be evaluated in Pittsburgh in order to determine if the surgery was even a possibility for the bright, young boy.

Foerster said many hands went to ensuring Zapata would receive the treatment he deserved in Pittsburgh, always with respectfulness and consideration to the culture.

Jackie Martinez, an immigration lawyer, worked on the appropriate documents for travel, while US Senator, Arlen Specter's Pittsburgh office, worked to expedite the passport and visa interview process to ensure Zapata arrived before May 1, the day Dr. Robert Yellon, could fit the surgery in. American Airlines' Miles for Kids program provided free round-trip airfare for not only Zapata, but Araica, as well.

"We wanted to make sure the grandmother could come with him instead of sending him alone," Foerster said of the trip. "The trauma (of sending him alone)...is beyond my comprehension."

Aside from airfare and medical expenses, the Rotary Club of Pittsburgh agreed to fund all of the external expenses of the trip, including lodging, but Dr. Carl Ross, professor of nursing at Robert Morris University, who made several humanitarian trips to Nicaragua in the last 15 years, heard about Zapata and opened his home to him and his grandmother during their stay.

"(The Ross's) became a partner and played a truly pivotal role," Foerster said.

The project, "became quite exciting for the country," she said, with a press conference held at Nicaragua's Institute of Tourism in Managua where Zapata was named an official Ambassador of Good Will to the United States.

To show the country's appreciation to the United States partners, each was given bags of Nicaraguan coffee for their efforts.

Zapata arrived in Pittsburgh earlier this month and underwent a four-hour reconstructive surgery at Children's Hospital's Airway and Voice Center where a piece of his rib bone was used to rebuild his trachea.

"The surgery went very well, but the child was placed in a seven-day comatose state," Foerster said, in order for his body to recuperate.

Today he will brought out of his comatose state and begin learning how to breathe and swallow all over again. Zapata will spend the next five weeks recovering in Pittsburgh before flying home. He will then continue to be monitored for at least six months to prevent infection.

Foerster said, if everything goes well, he is expected to regain his life as a normal 9-year-old child.

The most remarkable thing about the project, Foerster said, was that each partner who had a hand in creating a better life for Zapata offered their services Pro Bono.

She said the outreach to Nicaragua showed that the United States, particularly Pittsburgh, really care about the health and well-being of people in other parts of the world.

One of the biggest connections to Nicaragua Pittsburgher's have, Foerster said, stems from Pittsburgh Pirates star, Roberto Clemente's death from a plane crash in 1972 while on a humanitarian mission to the country devastated by a deadly earthquake.

"Pittsburgh felt the link to Nicaragua ever since," she said.

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