National Nurses Week 2025: Member Spotlight – Margaret Ropcean

Muchas Gracias!

I must say that the PANANAC Committee has been most helpful every time I have reached out to them in the last couple of years and it has been a “few.” I have also been very impressed with the work they have done. I wish I had some of their talent. Between Feb.21-Mar.3, 2025 – they assisted me again… so THANK YOU! The trip down to Ecuador had several long delays and the monetary donation certainly helped with expenses. By the time we got to the hotel and settled in, we just had a few hours to nap and catch the bus to start our clinic day (Feb. 23). It was a record for the longest that “I” have stayed awake.

For those who are not familiar with CAMTA (Canadian Association of Medical Teams Abroad) is a non profit organization that has been going to Un Canto a la Vida Hospital in Quito, Ecuador for 20+ years to do total hip arthroplasties on adults and for children they help with kids suffering from orthopedic problems (club feet, hip dislocations – common there, usually not fixed after birth, and other orthopedic procedures). Ecuador has a particularly high incidence of hip dysplasia, a birth defect which can cripple a person by the age of 30! Poverty and limited access means people live with pain and limited mobility their entire lives. These people are in dire need of help, who could not otherwise afford the care (here in Canada, if you’re born with hip dysplasia it gets fixed shortly after birth).

Two teams go down for approximately 2.4 weeks in total, each team with about 50 people – consisting of orthopedic surgeons, anesthetists, family doctors, residents, PT’s, RT’s, OR, PACU, and Ward nurses. The group also requires medical students, lay people, general students and translators. Approximately 130 new people were seen this year and then more for follow up appointments from the previous year. On Sunday we went to work: Charts had to be finalized, patients had to be seen and the CAMTA volunteers needed to set up their respective departments. The patients seen in the clinic are either accepted or rejected. Unfortunately, we can’t do all the ones that travel and come to be seen (some travel up to 8 hrs to  be seen).

The people are so happy when they get chosen to have the gift of surgery. The volunteers donate their time and talent to change the lives of these Ecuadorian people. We Canadians are their heroes and their angels. “We” do make a difference in their lives… but what these people don’t realize is the magnitude of what they give back to us. A person can spend their life searching… searching for the right job, the right friends, the right partner… but when i am in Ecuador I am not searching. It is a sense of peace and true service when our volunteer time is over. It is a feeling of comfort and extreme satisfaction when you see you are part of this amazing group of people who have volunteered so much of their time, energy, and talents to be there. When you have made the patients and their families so happy.

For me, I got very lucky working with a person I currently work with in PACU (Paulina) and another person who I had heard about for years (Bevita – who works in pediatric PACU). Some other people from my previous missions returned, so we got reacquainted. This made things less intimidating and much more comfortable. These 2 amazing PACU nurses have so much CAMTA experience! Some volunteers have been doing so for years with CAMTA, some over a decade! – Like Bev and Pauline. 

Our role there as a Recovery Room Nurse was to check the patients pre-op (and meet them), bring them down to the OR (where they would get their spinal anesthesia and then ready for the OR). When we would hear the “hammering” of placing in the new hip, it was our cue to get the next patient. We would portable xray them to make sure the new hip stayed in place and then one of us would porter them back upstairs -where the ward nurses, physio, and family doctors would take over their care. 

By Friday (end of our surgical week) you are on such a natural high – you finally got the rhythm of how to work with a lot of “new groups of people,” unfamiliar territory, and older equipment. We end with such a good feeling of giving to these people hope, success and a brighter look into their future. That’s why volunteers often return back. The team did a record number of hips this year: 38! Of which 4 were bilateral hips that were up WALKING the next morning! Saturday (March 1) was a busy day of getting everything counted, sorted, and packed up. Sunday night, the team flew back, so during the day we had a few hours of free time to go see and do what we wanted (hummingbirds, Artisan Markets, Art Market, some enjoyed the beautiful 360° view at the Vista Hermosa Cafe in Old town Quito, or a massage and sleep).

In this time of confusion, turmoil, and uncertainty in families, provincially, nationally, and globally, we as volunteers have people and organizations like YOU (PANANAC) who support us. We all are a change for the better (better life- better world). My mother always preached “have faith” (and fear will be replaced). At the end of each mission it is just such a great sense of accomplishment. A special term used by one of the docs for these missions has now been given the name “THE WEB OF LOVE”. We can change the lives of these people who have suffered chronic pain, poverty, bullying and are unable to work or play at school – a new lease on life. We have given them hope when some of them have given up on the change of any hope. (like Nelson-read his story as well as others on the CAMTA website)

After completing the missions I am simply passing on what I have been gifted. My life as a nurse.

Through this charity and many others like it …. There is still HOPE and there is still LOVE with the next generation coming up.

As our AWESOME photographer Darrel Comeau put it “Nurses Make a Difference: Anytime-Anywhere-Always”

Thanks again

Margarita