Healing The Children, Midlantic Background
Stateside American
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Stateside Foreign
| About Us Healing The Children, Midlantic Background |
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| Healing The Children (HTC) is a national, non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing free medical care to needy children from the United States and abroad. The nationwide organization, founded initially in Spokane, Washington in 1979, has spread across the length and breadth of the United States, with chapters currently active, coast to coast. The Midlantic Chapter of HTC was founded in 1981. Headquartered in Butler New Jersey, it draws support from New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and parts of Pennsylvania. Since 1979 all HTC chapters combined have provided medical care or assistance to over 63,000 children from 86 countries. The Midlantic Chapter is a major contributor to the overall HTC effort, seeing to the needs of over 25,000 children since its founding. HTC delivers its services chiefly through the following programs: | |
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Stateside American
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The two pillars that support HTC Midlantic activities are contributions and volunteers… contributions include money, surplus medical supplies, hospital staff and space and used medical equipment. Volunteers include doctors, nurses, health care professionals, host families, office staff and off duty airline personnel. Each chapter of HTC National is self funding in that it does not receive any financial support from the national organization. HTC Midlantic’s direct income from corporate and individual donations was approximately $240,000 in 2003. HTC Midlantic is pleased that over 80% of the donations that it receives are spent directly on providing care to needy children. Of course donations represent only a fraction of the value that HTC Midlantic is able to devote to providing care to needy children. The value of the time that volunteers have contributed, health care professionals, host families and others, can only be guessed at, but certainly must total millions of dollars. The Midlantic Chapter’s total administrative staff consists of 5 part time employees. |
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Stateside American Program
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| American children are referred to Healing The Children by local hospitals, Special Child Health Services, and/or social service agencies. Assistance can be all or any of the following: | |
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v HTC acts as a referral agency for free services and sometimes as an advocate with insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and/or local and state health organizations. |
| v HTC will provide financial assistance, or assistance with transportation to locations where specialized care is available | |
| v HTC will provide medical supplies, specialized medical equipment and/or prescription medicines. | |
| v HTC provides pediatric oncology parties and gifts for children battling cancer. | |
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Pediatric
Oncology Holiday Party
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v HTC provides homeless families with toiletries, food clothing and over-the-counter medical supplies and baby items |
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Over 8000 children have
received assistance under the Stateside American Program
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| Stateside Foreign Program | |
| Under the Stateside Foreign Program, foreign children are brought to the United States for free medical care beyond that available in their homeland and more sophisticated and/or time consuming than can be delivered by HTC Midlantic visiting medical teams. | |
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v HTC will seek hospitals and doctors in the United States willing to provide free care. |
| v HTC will arrange for passports, visas and legal power of attorney given to HTC and signed by the child’s parents | |
| v HTC will contact volunteer airline employees who donate time to escort the child to the U.S. and home again | |
| v HTC will provide volunteer families in the U.S. who are willing to become host parents to a child coming into the U.S. These families must meet all State requirements for child placement. | |
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A key feature of the Stateside Foreign Program are annual airlifts. Children travel to the United States “en mass” after having been assembled at some central location and are placed with temporary host families who provide food, housing, transportation to and from the doctors and hospitals, and love during the period of medical care. When treatment is complete, the children are returned to their country of origin. |
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A group of HTC children gathered together
for take off to the United States for critical medical care.
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Over
1800 children have been assisted under the Stateside
Foreign Program
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International Program |
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HTC realized that some medical problems could be treated more effectively in the child’s native land. Consequently, HTC sends volunteer medical teams to developing nations to provide free medical care on location. In the International Program, visiting volunteer medical teams are comprised of physicians, dentists, nurses and HTC Midlantic staff. The care delivered includes dental, plastic and reconstructive surgery, ophthalmology, urology, otolaryngology and orthopedics. Volunteers donate their services, which are provided to the children free-of-charge. Additionally, the volunteers share their knowledge with host country medical personnel in a self-help program. HTC donates medicines, equipment and supplies to patients undergoing treatment. HTC Midlantic organized the first international medical trip in 1988. | |
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| Providing care “on location” avoids the emotional trauma of separating a child from his/her parents and enables us to treat larger numbers of childen in shorter periods of time. This proves to be very cost effective and has the added benefit of reserving our hospitals in the United States for the more serious cases that cannot be treated by HTC visiting teams. | ||
| Over 13,000 children have been assisted | ||
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HTC
“Touches” the World’s Children
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| Armenia | Dominican Republic | Jordan | Romania |
| Afghanistan | Ecuador | Kenya | Russia |
| Antigua | Egypt | Korea | Saudi Arabia |
| Argentina | El Salvador | Lebanon | Sierra Leone |
| Bahamas | Ethiopia | Liberia | Spain |
| Bangladesh | Fiji | Lithuania | Sri Lanka |
| Barbados | Gaza Strip | Mali | St. Kitts |
| Belarus | Ghana | Marshall Is. | St. Lucia |
| Belize | Greece | Mexico | Suriname |
| Bolivia | Grenada | Micronesia | Syria |
| Brazil | Guatemala | Montserrat | Taiwan |
| British V.I. | Guyana | Morocco | Thailand |
| Bulgaria | Haiti | Nevis W.I. | Trinidad |
| Burma | Honduras | Nicaragua | Turkey |
| Chile | India | Nigeria | Uganda |
| China | Iran | Pakistan | Ukraine |
| Colombia | Iraq | Panama | Uzebekistan |
| Costa Rica | Ireland | Paraguay | United States |
| Croatia | Israel | Peru | Venezuela |
| Czechoslovakia | Italy | Philippines | Vietnam |
| Dominica W.I. | Jamaica | Poland | West Indies |
| Yugoslavia | |||