Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Here is a little background to the amazing organisation Operation Walk.

Dr. Lawrence D. Dorr founded Operation Walk in 1996 and developed its techniques for successful surgical missions in developing countries. These included identifying and building relationships with in-country hospitals and physicians, securing implants and other necessary medical supply donations, building volunteer teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, physical therapists and other healthcare professionals, learning how to transport medical equipment across borders and selecting patients in advance to ensure appropriate implants.

As Operation Walk’s reputation grew, it received many more requests from countries that needed help. At the same time, surgeons who volunteered on earlier missions decided that they loved the experience and patients so much that they offered to form additional teams to increase the number of patients Operation Walk could help each year. There are now 14 of these in the United States, two in Canada and one in Europe.

Each team secures volunteers with the range of skills needed based on the Operation Walk model and raises its own funds. Operation Walk team leaders in Los Angeles train each new team on how to perform a successful Operation Walk mission, ensuring quality standards and patient care remain consistent across the network. Each team generally carries out one trip per year although a few complete two missions.

In 2016The Irish team partnered with the Chicago chapter, under the direction of Dr David Stulberg, to perform Operation Walk's first international joint mission in Hanoi, Vietnam. This mission performed 86 hip and knee replacements in 5 days and engaged in an educational program with the local orthopaedic surgeons and their respective teams.

Operation Walk Ireland is an Irish-based charity whose mission is to perform hip and knee replacements for patients who would otherwise not have access to this life-changing surgery.

The first independent Operation Walk Ireland mission took place in May 2017 when we sent a second team back to the same hospital in Hanoi. Over 4 days we performed 64 joint replacement surgeries with our vietnamese colleagues and developed the educational aspects of the mission. In March 2018, we sent a second Operation Walk Ireland mission back to Hanoi, Vietnam.On this mission we operated on 45 patients, 56 joints in total over 4 days operating.Each year the mission is growing with 2019 lasting 12 days.

Having seen alot of social media posts as well as reading literature around this organisation I knew I needed and wanted to work with them.

The appication process, involved demonstrating how my occupation and role as a Musculoskeletal Specialist Physiotherapist in the NHS and private practice met the overall ethos and objectives OpWalk required To Volunteer. The have always been very clear in that each clinican needs to have specialist experience, in not only patient care but in the treatment of Orthopaedic patients pre and post operatively. I was absolutely overwhelmed and not to mention emotional to be chosen as one of the Physiotherapists. To be given this opportunity is truly life changing and I couldnt be happier to he able to use the skills I have to make other Peoples lives better.

The days and hours will be long but I honestly could not think of doing anything more worthwhile. We will see so so many patients in Hanoi who have been waiting years on life changing operations that they thought they would never get. I will work alongside a team of Surgeons, Nurses, Anaesthetists , interpreters, as well as my Physiotherapy colleagues, planning our pre-operative intervention in the form of exercise, education and assessment and then post operatively , getting each and every one of them on their feet, rehabilitated, building strength, mobility and confidence in their new lives without as much pain and disability. I will get to meet families, children and relatives and work with them in their new role with the patient.

Without donations, our mission would not be possible. So I have set up this page to raise necessary funds for my OpWalk Mission in 2020. Thank you to everyone who donates.

Seána x

”For it is in giving that we receive"

-St Francis of Assisi.