No one could have been happier than 14-year-old Robin Martinez and her parents Walter and Stacy Burnley on Sunday November 15 after they walked out from medical consultations at the Southern Regional Hospital in Dangriga. They had gotten up at the crack of dawn and travelled from Belize City to the Southern district to consult with Dr. Allan Burke, a plastic surgeon who visits Belize every year with a team of specialists to do cosmetic surgeries for Belizeans.
The team of doctors and specialists are from the International Hospital for Children and
every year, with the assistance of local coordinators including Milagro Garell and Mayra Singh and others, they make the pilgrimage to Belize to assist Belizeans with surgeries. The surgeries are plastic surgeries, cosmetic surgeries for a better quality of life for countless people. Robin is one such Belizean.
She was born without a right ear, and last year on the 9th of November, Robin and her parents were in Dangriga for the first consultation with Dr. Burke. A couple days after, the first consultation surgery was done on Robin where a plastic implant was placed where her ear was to have been. One year later, the transformation is remarkable. For all intents and purposes Robin has been given a new ear. “I am very thankful for what the doctors did” she explained. “I am a lot happier now, I have a new ear” she continued.
For Robin’s parents, especially Walter, the change has been one that is noticeable with every passing day. According to them Robin has gone from a shy child, who has always been self-conscious of her condition to someone who is open and outgoing. “She is now proud and confident, for her to be happy gives me all the pleasure in the world” says Walter. “Her job now is to tell as many people as she can about her surgery,” says Walter. He explains that the job to reconstruct Robin’s ear is almost complete, the final stage will be for Dr. Burke to create an ear lobe and that will be done in Belize City on Thursday November 12.
In speaking with Dr. Burke, he says that the team’s goal is to make the children feel more confident about themselves. He adds that the team is all too happy to assist with the surgeries because they make a difference in the life of children. The International Hospital for Children holds plastic surgery clinics yearly and their focus is on deformities, including cleft lips and palates, microatia which is a condition where the ear does not fully develop as well as other problems like burns and scars. Every year the medical team conducts numerous surgeries amounting to, without exaggeration, four days in the operating theaters to assist children.
This year surgeries will be conducted in Dangriga as well as in Belize City.
