Third Brevard Doctor Travels to Haiti
BREVARD, N.C., Jan. 31, 2010 – Dr. Suzanne Hoekstra, a general surgeon with Brevard Surgical Associates, and Dan Branon, a nurse anesthetist at Transylvania Regional Hospital, left Western North Carolina Thursday with a team of doctors and nurses from the region to provide medical relief in Haiti. The 16-person medical team arrived in Port-au-Prince on Friday.
Hoekstra will be working in the same medical clinic as Dr. Angus Graham, a Brevard orthopedic surgeon, who left for Haiti on Jan. 24 and has been treating earthquake victims in Leogane, about 20 miles west of Port-au-Prince. Branon was expecting to work at a hospital in Port-au-Prince.
“I’m prepared to do anything and everything possible to meet the needs of the people who are injured and suffering,” Hoekstra said. She has traveled to Haiti once before on a medical mission trip.
Both Hoekstra and Graham were each to be in Haiti for about a week treating the injured and sick. Graham was set to return to the United States on Sunday, Jan. 31.
Dr. Ora Wells, a pediatrician with the Brevard branch of Hendersonville Pediatrics, is also in Haiti for a two-week medical mission trip providing care to earthquake victims at a local hospital and two clinics on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. He is expected to return to the United States on Feb. 8.
Transylvania Regional Hospital donated soon-to-expire medicines and medical supplies to these physicians to take with them for their relief work. Local physicians and employees of Transylvania Regional Hospital also donated more than $2,000 to purchase additional medicine and medical supplies for the doctors to take with them to Haiti. TRH employees also set up a Haiti-relief fund to provide financial assistance to the local doctors as they need it to purchase additional supplies to treat patients while they are in Haiti.
About Transylvania Regional Hospital
Transylvania Regional Hospital is a nationally ranked 5-Star Hospital and a leading provider of quality healthcare services in Transylvania and surrounding counties. Based in Brevard, N.C., it is a not-for-profit hospital founded in 1933 and is the largest employer in Transylvania County.
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