By Jim Nicholson
Imagine your child has a life-threatening deformity. No, deformity
is too simple. Make that deformities, decidedly in the plural,
and that her life, per se, has been reduced to existence in
a wheelchair, but not a normal wheelchair, a horizontal wheelchair.
How does one care for a child in a horizontal wheelchair? Well,
for starters, it’s a 24/7 job, which means, as a single mother,
you have no other job. Your income equates to welfare, which
certainly does not begin to compensate you for the hours you
put in. Your medical bills are more than stratospheric and,
because you have no medical insurance as you can neither afford
it and, even if you could, no insurance company would grant
it, you’re reduced to the waits beyond belief of Emergency Room
treatment. Your child, who could and should be a happy, pretty
girl, is friendless, in constant pain and, well, even good girls
act up after a few hours of staring at an Emergency Room ceiling.
Or imagine you’re the Chief of a tribe of Indians deep in the
heart of the Amazon. ‘Civilization’ has long ago wiped out your
own civilization and continues to encroach upon your hunting
and farming lands. Your tribe has retreated into the jungle
and themselves about as far as they can go and the push of contemporary
life has met the shove of life, as you’ve always known it. The
entire tribe is in desperate need of some form of miracle merely
to maintain its existence, but what? Some tribal visionary—a
young man who should be a hunter? An old woman who’s seen it
all? Anyway, someone who’s capable of verbalizing thoughts new
to the tribe has noted that the tribe has always known how to
make brooms and, for all they know, they make the best brooms
in the Amazon. But how does knowing how to make brooms equate
to making brooms for a living? How does the tribe market its
brooms and, in essence, embrace a broom-based capitalism?
Both stories are true and Wings of Hope, the St. Louis-based
volunteer charity provided the miracles necessary to give each
a truly happy ending. The little girl was flown from her home
to a hospital, which provided the series of operations she needed,
but her mother could not afford—all arranged for by the Wings
of Hope Medical Relief and Air Transport (MAT). Instead of being
confined to that prison of a horizontal wheelchair, she’s now
on her feet and playing. The Amazonians, meanwhile, have been
given that facilitating step they needed towards self-sufficiency.
Welcome to just another day at the Wings of Hope office.
Executive Director Douglas Clements, explains that “Wings of
Hope sees itself as delivering humanity” then clarifies the
phrase by saying Wings of Hope “delivers hope by providing healthcare,
access to healthcare, education, opportunities for education,
business opportunities and micro-loan programs.” The list could
go on as this is obviously an organization that facilitates
between need and opportunity rather than one that makes promises
it cannot keep or, possibly worse, expects the vagaries of life
across the planet to conform to some kind of institutional rule
book.
In referring to the Amazonians, Clements points out that the
“mental evolution” inherent in making the decision to control
their future through the making of brooms was “phenomenal.”
If brooms, why not another product? Or two? If Wings of Hope
enables them to run a business, they will, inevitably, take
that knowledge and progress to another level.
Wings of Hope, Clements adds, provides a means of solving one
of the greater conundrums of contemporary American medicine.
“If you’re poor and if your disease is not treated locally,”
he explains, “your insurance will not pay for treatment elsewhere.
If that treatment is needed to save your life and, by circumstance,
unavailable, Wings of Hope with the MAT will step in and take
you where you can receive treatment.” In human terms, that means
the charity will find a medical center and team willing to provide
treatment, fly the patient to that center to receive treatment
and provide an on-site volunteer to monitor that patient as
would a family member or friend. “We flew 592 people last year,”
Clements relates, “and not a one died.”
Needless to say, the organization has ties to hospitals and
doctors across the country and deep respect for the medical
community, which is reflected in the services the medical community
gives to Wings of Hope patients. Sometimes, those patients provide
both the organization and the medical community with truly memorable
challenges.
An international case in point is the story of a 10-year-old
Somali girl who had been abducted as a sex slave. After three
years of captivity and more sexual abuse than one cares to contemplate,
she was rendered useless to her captors (“she was so deformed,
she no longer had bodily functions,” Clements relates) and abandoned
to die. Instead, she was found by a caravan and, ultimately,
returned to her parents. Wings of Hope was contacted. “She needed
all of her lower abdomen and her gynecological equipment rebuilt.
As she had no passport, getting her here was a huge problem.
Colin Powell (a member of Wings of Hope’s Honorary Council)
stepped in and got her a parole visa. We flew her over in one
of our airplanes.” The Mayo Clinic provided what turned out
to be two years of treatment.
Clements believes “charities should prove they deserve to receive
money”. With Wings of Hope, the proof stretches across the planet.
Discussions are in process to ensure the success stories continue.
“Negotiations are underway with a major St. Louis corporation
for them to fund the Saint Louis Medical Relief and Air Transport
service in a manner that requires them to spend zero initial
capital,” Clements offers. “Wings would be required to validate
our worth each year and we welcome that opportunity.” What a
nice way to deliver humanity.
