Club foot is a birth defect that is very common in developing countries. I saw children – and adults that never received treatment – suffering with club foot on almost every trip I took. Usually, they grow up to be beggars, sitting on the ground in front of a basket, because they cannot stand or walk or run.
Club foot refers to a condition where one or both feet of a newborn baby are deformed and twisted inward. It can be mild or severe. Usually, it prevents children from ever being able to stand or walk or run.
Most children with clubfoot in the developing world are not allowed to attend school, get a job, marry or raise a family. That’s why the vast majority of them end up as beggars.
The good is that there is a miracle cure for club foot that is 99.9% effective and very inexpensive. It involves a series of casts that are put on the legs of the baby, infant, child or teenager and changed weekly over six weeks of treatment. These gradually straighten the legs just like braces straighten teeth.
Once the legs are straight – in six weeks or so – casting is over. A very minor (and quick) surgery is then usually performed. After that, the patient sleeps every night with a special brace that keeps the legs pointed outward. After a year, or two, most patients no longer need the brace and their legs will stay straight forever.
After treatment for club foot these children have completely straight, normal legs and they can stand, walk and run like every other kid.
The cost of this miracle treatment is a miracle itself: $250. yes, $250 covers all of the casting, the surgery, and the special shoes and brace that the patient needs to wear after treatment.
We found many excellent partners that were treating thousands of children with club foot every year. Altogether, First Step helped cure more than six thousand children who were born with club foot.
I once went to Rwanda and met an amazing family that brought their baby boy to one of our partner hospitals to be cured. Here is their story….
Rwanda has made great strides in addressing the country’s clubfoot problem, educating people about the defect and the fact that it can be repaired. There are a number of clubfoot clinics in the capital of Kigali, and with additional funding from WonderWork, they have been able to increase their number of surgeries even further.
On this particular trip, after DeLois and I had spent time visiting clinics in Kigali, we drove two hours north to meet with a patient and his family in one of the outlying villages. The terrain beyond Kigali is dense and tropical, with dark green hillsides dotted with little homes, made from sheets of aluminum, bricks and cement blocks, extremely modest but brightly painted and cared for. As we drove along rutted roads, we saw people using bicycles to transport goods to market, balancing potatoes and lettuces on seats and handlebars, and then pushing the bikes along. We saw little kids with buckets bigger than their heads walking along the highways, hauling water from nearby wells. Our guide reminded us that although the local government has done an impressive job of addressing the clubfoot problem in cities—connecting with patients via TV, newspaper and radio advertising campaigns—it can be much harder to access patients in rural areas, where many people don’t have running water, let alone access to any kind of media.
After driving for two hours, we arrived at the small village of Nyakinama. As we pulled up in our van, Jean and Vestine Nirere, and their two-year-old son, James, were waiting for us outside their home. Vestine, the mother, was proudly holding her son up for us to see. The little boy was still undergoing treatment, so his newly straightened feet were encased in black boots held together with a metal bar to keep them in the correct position.
INSERT PHOTO: JeanVestineJames
Jean and Vestine gestured to us to join them inside their home. We ducked through the doorway of a small hut with a rusted tin roof and mud walls. As we sat down at a small table with two chairs, our translator explained that the father, Jean, wanted to tell us a story.
“It began the day our son James was born,” Jean started, his voice soft and solemn. “He was born with both his feet horribly twisted.”
As Jean spoke, he held his wife’s hand. Vestine looked nervous and concerned.
“Right away, I knew it was my wife’s fault,” Jean told us. “My wife’s mother has crooked feet. It was a family curse, and she had destroyed our son’s future. I told her to take her baby and leave my house, and to never, never come back!”
Vestine had begged and pleaded with Jean to reconsider. She threw herself at his feet, sobbing. But Jean would not be swayed.
“Get out!” he told her. “And take that thing with you.”
Vestine did. Less than an hour after giving birth, she got up and got dressed. The midwife carefully wrapped up her newborn in swaddling. Then Vestine walked out the door with her baby on her back, into the night.
Two months later, Vestine’s brother came to see Jean. The brother gently explained that Vestine had been living with her parents. One day, she’d heard a radio advertisement, and had learned that there was a clinic where she could take James to be treated. Clubfoot wasn’t a curse but a medical condition that could easily be cured. Baby James’ was already receiving treatment. “Your son goes to the hospital every week,” the brother told Jean. “His feet are almost straight already.”
Jean was shocked—and deeply ashamed. He sat with his head in his hands, without saying a word, tears in his eyes. After a few minutes, the brother-in-law grew impatient.
“What should I tell my sister?” he demanded, getting up to leave.
“Ask her to please come home,” Jean said. “Tell her I am sorry.”
As Jean told us this part of the story, he reached out and put his arm around his wife, who was fighting back tears herself.
“Thankfully my wife did come home,” Jean told us. “Since then, I have apologized to her, again and again. I made such a big mistake. I begged her to forgive me.”
You could tell by the smile that Vestine had.
“I want to thank you for helping us,” Jean said. “You didn’t just save one life—you saved all three of us.”
