The Souix City Journal did a write up on Sunday about Elias. I have pasted a copy of the text on this blog. Enjoy!!!
American doctors help Tanzanian miner get medical relief
By Tim Gallagher Journal staff writer
CHEROKEE, Iowa -- Elias Mollell comes from Tanzania, where people greet strangers like family, often with a two-sided hug to match a bright smile. For a couple of years, he relied on the kindness of his countrymen to get from place to place."Hakuna matata," he says, offering his own English translation. "No worries."Sadly, Mollell's life since 1995 has been nothing but worry. Then 25, Mollell worked with eight miners at a tanzanite mine near Merelani when an explosion in an adjacent mine caused their mine shaft to collapse. Mollell was the lone survivor. Buried to his neck, he suffered a broken back and since then has been unable to walk without crutches. A former champion sprinter and long jumper as a high school athlete, Mollell now spends much of his time in a wheelchair.Enter Dr. Jeremy Normington of Cherokee, Iowa. The director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Cherokee Regional Medical Center has taken Mollell's worries and hardship as his own. Normington recently arranged for Mollell to travel to Siouxland, where he may soon benefit from the work of surgeons associated with the Center for Neurosciences Orthopaedics and Spine and St. Luke's Regional Medical Center.Spinal fusions, according to Normington, can cost more than $50,000 in the United States."Being from a country where the average income is $300 per year there is no way he could afford the surgery personally," says Normington. "One way to glorify God is by showing love to our brothers."That's what Normington is trying to do for his brother, Elias Mollell.Graduate student meets a minerSix years ago, graduate student Jeremy Normington took one of his physical therapy rotations at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Tanzania's top rated medical facility and teaching complex. It harbors the only physical therapy teaching department in the country, graduating 10 to 15 students annually."There were 56 physical therapists in Tanzania when I was there in 2000," says Normington, adding there are likely that many in Sioux City alone right now.The country, which relies on mining and tourism, is poor. One of every three children born in Tanzania dies before age 5. Only 8 percent of children in the country graduate from high school. The medical center is located in Moshi, a city of about 100,000 people that put up its first street light a few years ago.Normington was greeted each day at the medical center by Mollell, who worked his way up to walking with crutches while undergoing physical therapy there. Mollell, then 29, took Normington to see his home in the mountains. It's where he raised a son with his extended family. His fiancee, who had given birth to the child, left him after Mollell's accident in the mine, suspecting he could no longer provide for a family. The baby was 3 months old.Mollell's condition worsened over the past several years. His spine became more unstable, causing him constant pain. Normington, who remained in contact, came to believe his friend's only option involved a lumbar fusion in the states.Normington became Mollell's sponsor, arranged for a medical visa that would allow the Tanzanian to travel here. He also found local hospitals and doctors to donate medical services. The work must be done in the next couple of months as the visa lasts only three months.John Comstock, CEO at Cherokee Regional Medical Center, joined Normington in approaching Peter Thoreen, CEO of St. Luke's in Sioux City, about providing facilities and personnel should a surgery take place. Thoreen agreed, offering St. Luke's as the site for an eight- to 10-hour surgery performed by Drs. Steven Meyer and Quentin Durward of CNOS. The surgery is in the works, though no date has been set.The right manThe project has a special place for Meyer, an orthopaedics surgeon who directs Siouxland Tanzania Education Medical Ministries, a medical missionary group that has performed 450 orthopaedic surgeries in Tanzania the past 10 years.Meyer was introduced to Tanzania as a boy growing up on a farm near Hartley, Iowa. His father, he recalls, bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica and the boy began reading about Africa. He made his first trip there 15 years ago. He's been back 18 times to deliver supplies to orphans, operate on patients and build latrines for struggling communities, among other things. STEMM contributors provided funding this year to send 550 children to school in Tanzania."We had hoped to send 50 to school 10 years ago," Meyer says. "That number is 550 now. We'd like to send 5,000 to school in 10 years."The cost is $150 per child. "That's 30 cents per day," he adds."We like to say that you may be only one person in the world, but you can be the world to one person," Meyer says.His group will soon embark on a $1 million drive to build an orphanage with a church in Tanzania. The project aims to fulfill a promise STEMM members made to a child who contracted the AIDS virus from her mother at birth and later died."If you don't have a family, you're out of the culture in Tanzania," says Meyer, noting there are 2 million orphans in the country.Meyers' work this month with Mollell is an outgrowth of STEMM. It is one way to again showcase what can be done for the needy people of Tanzania, especially miners who work in considerable danger without the benefit of workman's compensation."I think we can help Elias," he says. "It will be difficult as his spine was broken and dislocated at the same time."He predicts the surgery will take both doctors working eight to 10 hours on both sides of Mollell, breaking open what has healed and performing reconstruction along with the fusion. While it may or may not significantly improve Mollell's ambulation, it should surely alleviate much of his pain.For the man who supposedly has "no worries," the development lifts his spirit. Elias Mollell, clad in a Cherokee Regional Medical Center shirt, gives Meyer a two-sided hug. He indicates he had "come to the end of himself" at the end of a two-year stay in a hospital in his home country. He was tired of hopping from person to person, his only way of getting to his destination."He then decided to give himself up to the Lord," Normington says.Soon, he was in physical therapy, slowly gaining strength. More important, he gained a friend, who showed him the way to Northwest Iowa. Elias Mollell can't wait now to walk from this destination pain free. He seeks to start over, working again as a productive member of his home country."No problems," he predicts, again flashing his broad smile. "No worries!"
American doctors help Tanzanian miner get medical relief
By Tim Gallagher Journal staff writer
CHEROKEE, Iowa -- Elias Mollell comes from Tanzania, where people greet strangers like family, often with a two-sided hug to match a bright smile. For a couple of years, he relied on the kindness of his countrymen to get from place to place."Hakuna matata," he says, offering his own English translation. "No worries."Sadly, Mollell's life since 1995 has been nothing but worry. Then 25, Mollell worked with eight miners at a tanzanite mine near Merelani when an explosion in an adjacent mine caused their mine shaft to collapse. Mollell was the lone survivor. Buried to his neck, he suffered a broken back and since then has been unable to walk without crutches. A former champion sprinter and long jumper as a high school athlete, Mollell now spends much of his time in a wheelchair.Enter Dr. Jeremy Normington of Cherokee, Iowa. The director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Cherokee Regional Medical Center has taken Mollell's worries and hardship as his own. Normington recently arranged for Mollell to travel to Siouxland, where he may soon benefit from the work of surgeons associated with the Center for Neurosciences Orthopaedics and Spine and St. Luke's Regional Medical Center.Spinal fusions, according to Normington, can cost more than $50,000 in the United States."Being from a country where the average income is $300 per year there is no way he could afford the surgery personally," says Normington. "One way to glorify God is by showing love to our brothers."That's what Normington is trying to do for his brother, Elias Mollell.Graduate student meets a minerSix years ago, graduate student Jeremy Normington took one of his physical therapy rotations at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Tanzania's top rated medical facility and teaching complex. It harbors the only physical therapy teaching department in the country, graduating 10 to 15 students annually."There were 56 physical therapists in Tanzania when I was there in 2000," says Normington, adding there are likely that many in Sioux City alone right now.The country, which relies on mining and tourism, is poor. One of every three children born in Tanzania dies before age 5. Only 8 percent of children in the country graduate from high school. The medical center is located in Moshi, a city of about 100,000 people that put up its first street light a few years ago.Normington was greeted each day at the medical center by Mollell, who worked his way up to walking with crutches while undergoing physical therapy there. Mollell, then 29, took Normington to see his home in the mountains. It's where he raised a son with his extended family. His fiancee, who had given birth to the child, left him after Mollell's accident in the mine, suspecting he could no longer provide for a family. The baby was 3 months old.Mollell's condition worsened over the past several years. His spine became more unstable, causing him constant pain. Normington, who remained in contact, came to believe his friend's only option involved a lumbar fusion in the states.Normington became Mollell's sponsor, arranged for a medical visa that would allow the Tanzanian to travel here. He also found local hospitals and doctors to donate medical services. The work must be done in the next couple of months as the visa lasts only three months.John Comstock, CEO at Cherokee Regional Medical Center, joined Normington in approaching Peter Thoreen, CEO of St. Luke's in Sioux City, about providing facilities and personnel should a surgery take place. Thoreen agreed, offering St. Luke's as the site for an eight- to 10-hour surgery performed by Drs. Steven Meyer and Quentin Durward of CNOS. The surgery is in the works, though no date has been set.The right manThe project has a special place for Meyer, an orthopaedics surgeon who directs Siouxland Tanzania Education Medical Ministries, a medical missionary group that has performed 450 orthopaedic surgeries in Tanzania the past 10 years.Meyer was introduced to Tanzania as a boy growing up on a farm near Hartley, Iowa. His father, he recalls, bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica and the boy began reading about Africa. He made his first trip there 15 years ago. He's been back 18 times to deliver supplies to orphans, operate on patients and build latrines for struggling communities, among other things. STEMM contributors provided funding this year to send 550 children to school in Tanzania."We had hoped to send 50 to school 10 years ago," Meyer says. "That number is 550 now. We'd like to send 5,000 to school in 10 years."The cost is $150 per child. "That's 30 cents per day," he adds."We like to say that you may be only one person in the world, but you can be the world to one person," Meyer says.His group will soon embark on a $1 million drive to build an orphanage with a church in Tanzania. The project aims to fulfill a promise STEMM members made to a child who contracted the AIDS virus from her mother at birth and later died."If you don't have a family, you're out of the culture in Tanzania," says Meyer, noting there are 2 million orphans in the country.Meyers' work this month with Mollell is an outgrowth of STEMM. It is one way to again showcase what can be done for the needy people of Tanzania, especially miners who work in considerable danger without the benefit of workman's compensation."I think we can help Elias," he says. "It will be difficult as his spine was broken and dislocated at the same time."He predicts the surgery will take both doctors working eight to 10 hours on both sides of Mollell, breaking open what has healed and performing reconstruction along with the fusion. While it may or may not significantly improve Mollell's ambulation, it should surely alleviate much of his pain.For the man who supposedly has "no worries," the development lifts his spirit. Elias Mollell, clad in a Cherokee Regional Medical Center shirt, gives Meyer a two-sided hug. He indicates he had "come to the end of himself" at the end of a two-year stay in a hospital in his home country. He was tired of hopping from person to person, his only way of getting to his destination."He then decided to give himself up to the Lord," Normington says.Soon, he was in physical therapy, slowly gaining strength. More important, he gained a friend, who showed him the way to Northwest Iowa. Elias Mollell can't wait now to walk from this destination pain free. He seeks to start over, working again as a productive member of his home country."No problems," he predicts, again flashing his broad smile. "No worries!"
posted by Jeremy Normington at 8:50 AM
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