Ailing Toddler in Russia Gets Help From Afar

Eleanor Baranova is a 2-year-old girl in the Russian town of Zelanadolsk who is afflicted with a terrible malady: her chest and back are covered with a giant hairy nevus, a mole that is not only disfiguring but potentially fatal.

Ted Werner is a 60-year-old former educator and international relief worker from Rancho Palos Verdes who has never met Eleanor. And yet over the past few months he and his longtime friend, Dr. Wayne McKinny of Palm Springs, a retired pediatrician, have spent countless hours trying to find help for the little girl.

Now it looks as if they may have succeeded. Although there are some details that remain to be worked out, Eleanor and her mother, Rosa Ildusovna Yagadina, are scheduled to come to Los Angeles in October, after which a plastic surgeon at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, near Torrance, will begin the first of a series of operations to remove the nevus and replace it with skin grafts from unblemished parts of the girl’s body.

“I’m ecstatic,” Werner said. “It means that a child isn’t going to be thrown away.”

“It’s the kind of thing that brings you joy,” McKinny added.

“I don’t have the words to express our gratitude and thanks,” Eleanor’s mother said in a letter to McKinny. The letter was translated from Russian by Los Angeles Russian-language student Derik Viner, who has been helping McKinny and Werner in corresponding with Eleanor’s mother.

The story began last spring, when McKinny, 58, traveled to Russia as medical director for the Global Children’s Organization, a Hawaii-based charitable group that was trying to find American homes for orphans from the former Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations. On a trip to Zelanadolsk, in the former autonomous Soviet republic of Tatarstan, which is 360 miles east of Moscow, McKinny was giving physical exams to children at an orphanage when the director drew him aside and asked him if he could look at her own daughter, Eleanor.

McKinny was shocked at what he saw.

“It was the worst of its kind I’d ever seen,” McKinny said. “It looks just like gorilla skin.”

Eleanor’s mother told McKinny that she had taken the girl to Moscow for medical treatment soon after she was born, but doctors there told her there was nothing they could do. The Russian doctors also told Eleanor’s mother that every year there is a 10% chance the mole will turn cancerous--which, given its size, could be fatal.

“The mother was beside herself,” McKinny recalled. “She asked me if there was anything I could do to help. I promised I would try.”

When McKinny returned to California, bringing with him color photos of the little girl, he was met at Los Angeles International Airport by Werner. The two men had known each other for 30 years, and both had worked for Medico, a Southeast Asian network of hospitals and orphanages founded by Dr. Tom Dooley. McKinny showed Werner the photos he had taken of Eleanor.

“I just fell in love with this little girl,” Werner recalled. “There’s something about the expression on her face that seems to say, ‘Please help me.’ I made a mental vow at that very moment that I would do everything in my power to help her.”

It would not, however, be easy.

Finding doctors who would contribute their services was relatively easy. But finding a hospital that would contribute its facilities, or even provide them at a reasonable cost, was more difficult. One Torrance hospital that specializes in skin grafting procedures told Werner it would cost about $125,000 for the operations, even though a doctor at the hospital had agreed to donate his services. Another Los Angeles area charitable hospital turned Werner down on the grounds that, according to Werner, “for the amount of money it would cost, they could save three kids instead of just one.”

It was the same story at other hospitals Werner contacted. Either it would cost more than he could raise or else the hospital board did not think it was worth the resources it would require.

“I can understand their position,” Werner said. “It’s all business; there’s not really a lot of heart to it.”

Finally, though, Werner found the right combination of doctor and hospital. Dr. Malcolm Lesavoy, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, agreed to perform the operations without charge. The hospital quoted a reasonable price--$900 per day for an estimated total of six weeks of hospital time, which could amount to $37,800. Some other hospitals had quoted rates of $3,000 a day. Werner is hoping to cut the hospital cost even more by getting manufacturers of medical supplies to donate materials.

“I’m confident that it’s going to come together now,” Werner said. The first operation is scheduled for Oct. 14.

“It’s a pretty straightforward procedure,” Lesavoy said of the operations. Part of the mole will be cut away and skin from the girl’s buttocks and thighs will be grafted onto the area; three months later another section will be cut away and replaced with grafted skin. Eleanor will return to Russia to recuperate for a year, then come back for another series of operations. Anywhere from four to six operations will be required.

Lesavoy said he is performing the operations free of charge, simply “because I was asked.”

“Many plastic surgeons donate their services” to people who need help and can’t pay, he said. “This is something we have an obligation to do. We’re human beings, not money-grubbing doctors. So you don’t get paid, so what? It’s a small fraction of time out of your life.”

Current plans call for Werner to fly to Russia at the beginning of October to escort Eleanor and her mother back to Los Angeles; they are in the process of obtaining exit and entry visas.

Meanwhile, Werner has started a nonprofit organization called Pediatrics Across the Hemispheres (PATH), with McKinny as medical director, to help Eleanor and other children in similarly grim situations.

“We’ll try to find kids with life-threatening diseases in places where medical help is not available,” Werner said. PATH will provide transportation to the United States, where cooperating American medical organizations can provide facilities and medical services for the children’s treatment.

Eleanor Baranova will be PATH’s first client.

Because of the lengthy stays in Los Angeles, Werner and McKinny are looking for Russian-speaking host families who would be willing to let Eleanor’s mother stay with them while the girl is in the hospital. Also, Werner has worked out an arrangement with United Airlines where people with the air carrier’s Mileage Plus bonus miles can donate them to a special PATH account for use by Eleanor or other PATH clients. United flies only to Europe, not to Russia, but Werner says that is “close enough.”

Werner said that anyone who would like to be a host family for Eleanor’s mother, to donate United Airlines bonus miles, or to make a tax-deductible financial contribution, can contact Werner and PATH at (310) 798-6790.