lifestyle

Michael Ibarra, a 10-year-old from Chiriqui province, can use his right hand to throw a baseball with unusual precision and hard-to-hit motion for someone his age. Due to a botched operation in which a tendon was severed a few years ago, he was unable to do much of anything with his left hand, and over time that hand, its fingers and his entire left arm atrophied and shriveled. It didn't stop Ibarra from playing baseball by tucking a glove under his useless arm, making his pitches and quickly putting the glove on his right hand when he needed to catch the ball. His talent was noticed by the Fundacion Omar Moreno, which took him in at its academy in Puerto Armuelles and began to look around to see if his left hand and arm could be fixed.

The search took Ibarra to a consultation on the US Navy hospital ship Comfort when it called at Colon last year, but the doctors on that vessel weren't set up to do the sort of complicated operations that might restore the use of Michael's hand. But yes, the US Navy physicians said that it did appear possible to repair the damage and the American Embassy started looking in the USA for specialists who might be able to do the job.

However, it turned out that they didn't have to look that far afield. Here in Panama there are surgeons who can do the job, and it was thus arranged for a team including Doctors Luís Picard-Amí, Heraclio Barría and Lolita Pinilla de Jiménez to do the operation at Punta Pacifica Hospital. The physicians donated their time and the hospital donated its facilities, and the extended therapy that Michael will need to rebuild the strength and flexibility of his left arm and hand is also being donated.

It was surely a money maker for the hospital, which in addition to being an upscale health care facility is one of the places where Johns Hopkins University teaches physicians. Publicity about their ability to do complicated surgery that's otherwise unavailable in Panama will surely bring in more paying patients, whose business will more than offset the cost of the services given to young Mr. Ibarra.

At a time of complicated relations between the United States and Panama, his role in helping to arrange the operation surely has to be one of the more pleasant tasks that American ambassador Bill Eaton has done in his tenure here. A career diplomat, Eaton is scheduled to leave Panama for his next assignment in a few months. The man has his own personality and style of doing things, but the general consensus in the American community here is that he's been the second very good ambassador that we have had in a row and from what it is possible to tell he gets higher marks from the diplomats who have worked under his direction than his popular predecessor got.

It's also another demonstration of who believes in and practices what on the Panamanian baseball scene. The Fundacion Omar Moreno is headed by former big league baseball player and former national baseball team manager Omar Moreno, who in addition to his work promoting the development and welfare of young players is the most prominent of the many critics of the thuggish legislator Franz Wever and the crooked political patronage scam into which he has turned FEDEBEIS, Panamanian baseball's ruling body. Moreno, who grew up poor but gained fame and fortune through his baseball skills, is giving back to the country from whence he came. Notice which of the rival baseball leaders came through for this young athlete --- and which of them personally got Panama's team kicked out of the world baseball championship. Notice who is able to deal with Major League Baseball and the US government to get some help for players --- and who's avoiding criminal proceedings in an Olympic Committee embezzlement scandal only because he has a legislator's immunity.

None of these extraneous matters figured in the statements of the doctors, the hospital, the embassy or the foundation. They all quite properly put the spotlight on Michael Ibarra.