Shriners provide truckload of donations for disaster relief
HONOLULU — The Shriners of the Aloha Shriners and Shriners Hospitals for Children® - Honolulu recently donated a truckload of items, including refrigerators, boxes of clothes, medical supplies, and other necessities to support victims of Cyclone Evan that hit Samoa in mid-December 2012. The donations will be shipped to American Samoa.
Shriner Jack Webb, who spearheaded the Shriner American Samoa Relief Effort, in collaboration with Lighthouse Outreach Center, presented the donations to Gus Hannemann, director of the Hawaii office of the American Samoa government.
Webb has a special affinity with American Samoa. Under his leadership as Potentate of the Aloha Shriners in 1986, he chartered the American Samoa Shrine Club, which holds golf tournaments and other fundraisers to support children who need orthopedic care at Shriners Hospitals for Children® - Honolulu. One of the first patients from outside Hawaii to receive care at the Honolulu hospital was from American Samoa.
A team of orthopedic surgeons and other health care professionals from Shriners Hospital is scheduled to conduct outreach clinics in American Samoa and Samoa from late March through April. The hospital provides care for children with various orthopedic conditions, including birth defects of hips, arms and legs, deformities of the spine, serious complications from bone infections of the arms or legs, sports injuries, cerebral palsy, some burn scars, complicated fracture problems and more.
There are two qualifications for care at Shriners Hospital: Children must be under age 18 and have an orthopedic condition that can be treated. All care at the hospital is provided to a child, regardless of a family’s ability to pay.
The Aloha Shriners have a patient transportation fund that is used for patients who may be eligible for transportation assistance to receive care at the Honolulu hospital.
About Shriners Hospitals for Children®
Shriners Hospitals for Children® is the largest sub-specialty healthcare system in the world and has the largest full-time staff of pediatric orthopedic surgeons in the United States.
The Honolulu hospital is part of a healthcare system that includes 22 facilities throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing specialty pediatric care, innovative research and outstanding teaching programs. The Honolulu hospital provides care to children with a wide range of orthopedic, neuromuscular, and post-burn conditions from Hawaii and the Pacific Basin.
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