Deseret International Foundation Inc., has quietly changed the lives of thousands of children and adults the past five years.
With 600 volunteers worldwide, the organization performed 4,113 major surgeries last year. The foundation focuses on cases that are predictable, readily diagnosed and require one-stage operations such as cataracts, cleft lips and palates, club feet, crossed eyes and disfigurements.Dr. Bill Jackson, who served as an LDS Church mission president in the Philippines, started Deseret International in that country in 1989. It now works with local doctors to provide health and dental care in 14 countries. Most third-world nations don't lack doctors but need medical supplies.
The foundation matches patients in need with doctors. "We don't say, `Hey, we'll do it for you," Jackson said.
Several Utah doctors travel to countries such as Uganda, Zimbabwe, El Salvador, Nicaragua and India to train physicians and demonstrate new medical technologies. Doctors pay their own expenses.
Jackson said Deseret International operates with low overhead. Last year, about $10,400, or about 5 percent, of its $210,700 budget was used for administrative costs. The organization figures its average cost per case in 1993 was $41.
The foundation's latest undertaking is the Rwanda Relief Fund, an effort to help refugees in that war-ravaged nation.
Donations can be sent to Deseret International, 1282 E. Cambridge, Provo, UT 84604. For more information, call 374-9035 or fax 225-4576.