CURE International Sees Its One Millionth Patient

Oct. 28, 2009 - PRLog -- Lemoyne, Pa,: CURE International founder and CEO, Dr. Scott Harrison, announced today that the organization has reached its one millionth patient. Since opening its first hospital just 11 years ago, CURE International has made a remarkable impact in the lives of physically disabled children in the nine countries in which it operates hospitals. One of CURE’s first patients was Franciscah from Kenya. Read how she described her life before being treated at the AIC-CURE International Children’s Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya: “My family perceived me as a curse to them. I was of no value to them, and, if anything, they saw me as an unnecessary burden. In fact, they wished I could die in my childhood to get rid of the shame of having a disabled child.”

“Hearing comments like this from our patients still deeply saddens me,” said Dr. Harrison.
“This is the tragic reality so many physically disabled children in the developing world face.
That is why my wife, Sally, and I founded CURE International.”

He further commented, “When I think about where CURE is today, I am humbled by the impact we’ve had thus far in the lives of so many people. It is incredibly gratifying to know that children like Franciscah have received the care that has transformed their lives.”

Franciscah now has a life she once thought impossible. She works at CURE's Kenya hospital and serves as an inspiration to young patients who arrive at the facility. “I am self-dependent and happily married. I see even a brighter future. AIC-CURE Kenya is an oasis of hope for disabled children and their families in Kenya,” she explained.

CURE International was founded in 1996 and opened its first hospital in 1998. Its mission was to heal children with physical disabilities through medical and spiritual healing.

Today this mission is still the same, even as CURE has expanded its network of teaching hospitals and established initiatives to eliminate specific conditions like clubfoot as a lifelong disability.

Currently, CURE International is the only organization of its kind that provides specialty surgical care for physically disabled children in the developing world.

Most of its hospitals are dedicated to curing children of physical disabilities in either orthopedics or neurosurgery. (CURE’s Zambia hospital is a dual-purpose facility while its hospitals in the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan focus on maternal health and also offer general medical care.)

All of CURE’s hospitals are dedicated to training national medical professionals in advanced surgical procedures. The goal is to ensure that there will be more orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and other professionals available to care for future generations of physically disabled children.

“There are 100 million physically disabled children in the developing world who can be cured,” noted Dr. Harrison. “In order to do that, we need to train more surgeons and enable them to extend the same quality of expert surgical care CURE provides at its hospitals.”

Dr. Harrison said the million patient milestone is but the first step in CURE’s mission: “We will continue to build our legacy of healing. I’m gratified about what we’ve done so far, but I’m even more excited about the millions of other lives we will transform in the years to come.”

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Founded in 1996, CURE International is the largest provider of pediatric specialty surgical care in the developing world, transforming the lives of physically disabled children and their families through medical and spiritual healing. A nonprofit medical organization, CURE International specializes in the treatment of children with curable orthopedic and neurosurgical conditions. It also provides medical education and training programs to national medical professionals throughout the developing world. To date, it has performed almost 70,000 surgeries and seen more than 1,000,000 patients. Visit
www.cureinternational.org for more information.