Hanger Orthopedic Group, Bethesda, Maryland, was recently honored for its charitable relief efforts in Haiti by InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. Hanger was nominated for InterAction’s Corporate Recognition for Humanitarian Assistance award by Physicians for Peace, an InterAction member organization and a partner in the Haitian Amputee Coalition.
“We are honored to be recognized by such an esteemed and dynamic organization,” said Hanger CEO and President Thomas Kirk, PhD. “Like InterAction, we believe that providing disaster relief, refugee assistance, and sustainable development programs are worthwhile endeavors to pursue, especially as they relate to the improvement of human mobility.”
Soon after the January 12 earthquake, Hanger and its charitable organization, the Hanger Ivan R. Sabel Foundation, in conjunction with the partners of the Haitian Amputee Coalition, which include Physicians for Peace, the Harold & Kayrita Anderson Family Foundation, the Catholic Medical Mission Board, and Donald Peck Leslie, MD, of the Shepherd Center, founded a long-term prosthetic and rehabilitation center on-site at the Hopital Albert Schweitzer (HAS), an undamaged hospital with a high clinical reputation that is located 60 miles from Port-au-Prince in Deschapelles, Haiti. Since its founding on February 22, 2010, the practitioners of the Hanger Ivan R. Sabel Foundation Clinic have provided customized prosthetic solutions to nearly 400 Haitian amputees, and the foundation has established a training program to educate local Haitians to become prosthetic practitioners and technicians.
