CRAIG GIMA / NOVEMBER 2006Sythan Leam, 14, shown here helping with chores at home in Anlong Thor, Cambodia, will come to Hawaii for medical treatment.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Cambodian teen arrives for surgery
Craig Gima
cgima@starbulletin.com
Honolulu Star Bulletin (Hawaii, USA)
Looking a little tired from her 6,300-mile journey, a 14-year-old girl arrived in Honolulu from Cambodia this morning for life-changing surgery.
Sythan Leam suffered a severe burn when she was 5 months old. Because there were no doctors in her village, the wound was not treated properly and her left foot was fused to her left thigh. She has never walked normally.
Even her brothers and sisters call her cripple.
Shriners Hospital for Children in Honolulu agreed to treat Leam. After her story appeared in the Star-Bulletin, the non-profit group Medicorps raised about $10,000 to bring Leam to Honolulu.
She traveled by bus from her village in Kampong Thom province to the Thailand border and then onto Bangkok.
She flew with Dr. Gunther Hintz, Medicorps president, from Bangkok, to Tokyo and then onto Honolulu.
Through an interpreter Leam said she was a little nervous, but comfortable.
She commented on the view of the ocean from 30,000 feet, saying she’d never seen anything like it.
Leam was hungry after the flight, Hintz said, because she could eat only rice on the plane. “Everything else was too strange to her, even orange juice,” he said.
Leam was to be examined at Shriners today and then will stay with a Cambodian family until she is admitted to the hospital.
Once she is examined, doctors will decide on how to treat her.
It’s unclear whether doctors can save her leg, but even with a prosthetic she will have a better life, Hintz said.
Once Leam returns to Cambodia, Medicorps has made arrangements for her to stay in Siem Reap, a town about 130 miles from her village, where she can get continued medical treatment and learn to read. She has only a second-grade education.
But first things first. This afternoon she was to get some home-style Cambodian food, Hintz said.
Sythan Leam suffered a severe burn when she was 5 months old. Because there were no doctors in her village, the wound was not treated properly and her left foot was fused to her left thigh. She has never walked normally.
Even her brothers and sisters call her cripple.
Shriners Hospital for Children in Honolulu agreed to treat Leam. After her story appeared in the Star-Bulletin, the non-profit group Medicorps raised about $10,000 to bring Leam to Honolulu.
She traveled by bus from her village in Kampong Thom province to the Thailand border and then onto Bangkok.
She flew with Dr. Gunther Hintz, Medicorps president, from Bangkok, to Tokyo and then onto Honolulu.
Through an interpreter Leam said she was a little nervous, but comfortable.
She commented on the view of the ocean from 30,000 feet, saying she’d never seen anything like it.
Leam was hungry after the flight, Hintz said, because she could eat only rice on the plane. “Everything else was too strange to her, even orange juice,” he said.
Leam was to be examined at Shriners today and then will stay with a Cambodian family until she is admitted to the hospital.
Once she is examined, doctors will decide on how to treat her.
It’s unclear whether doctors can save her leg, but even with a prosthetic she will have a better life, Hintz said.
Once Leam returns to Cambodia, Medicorps has made arrangements for her to stay in Siem Reap, a town about 130 miles from her village, where she can get continued medical treatment and learn to read. She has only a second-grade education.
But first things first. This afternoon she was to get some home-style Cambodian food, Hintz said.
3 comments:
Good luck, Sytham Leam!
Hi,
I am very grateful for Dr. Gunther Hintz.
I am very happy to see how you and other people try to help Khmer people.
Please help some more people.
I know there are too many of poorly people that need your helps.
I will help my khmer people too, if I have enough money to help.
Thank you to all of you that take her here.
Many thanks. I wish all of you and your family have good luck and succeed in all your work.
may god bless you all!
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