TANGO: a homegrown outreach stretching far and wide

Times Photo submitted. TANGO: Dr. Jim Olsen with Maxilofacial Surgery of Lethbridge with Tango team to Vietnam September 2024.

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The good news is that there’s still good news these days, and you don’t have to look far. There are plenty of noble causes to get involved in locally, and perhaps one the most noteworthy is TANGO, or Taber Assisting Nations through Global Outreach. The foundation, spearheaded by Dr. Ryan Torrie, is coming fresh off a March 1 fundraiser at the community centre which drew about 300 people and raised roughly $30,000 for its outreach missions. TANGO takes its teams to underdeveloped countries to offer medical services to those who would have trouble accessing them otherwise.

 “We’ve been to Fiji multiple times, Guatemala multiple times, Mexico multiple times, Peru, and now Kenya,” Torrie said on March 3, after travelling with a group to Africa in February. Torrie travels with doctors, dentists, optometrists, surgeons, and other volunteers to perform facial surgery, plastic surgery, general surgery, trauma surgery, and vascular surgery. In addition to other general medical assistance, Torrie said TANGO has taken construction groups and focused on women’s and children’s health. He said that over the last 13 years, “we’ve probably done 18 trips.”

 Last month, TANGO took 15 or 16 people to Kenya for the first time. 

“We all pay our own way. Kenya was over $5,000 for us to pay to get down there, and then we take funds. So when we fundraise, like this Tango Foundation Gala we had Saturday night, we fundraise for supplies and equipment. All those funds go towards providing the supplies and instruments we need to operate and do the surgeries and procedures.”

“A lot of times a spouse wants to come. So we’ll find what their skills and interests are and put together an opportunity for them to serve,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing.”

 The foundation is planning its next trip to Guatemala in May, and some of the funds raised this month will go to help purchase laparoscopic equipment for gallbladder, hernia, and similar procedures. Some destinations have supplies but the regions are often quite poor, so TANGO makes those purchases itself.

 “Then we help build up their site and their facility, so we’ll leave that equipment there,” Torrie said. “Our last trip there, we left our anesthesia machine there because they didn’t have an anesthetic machine. They didn’t have air compressors and pressure systems for their water system.”

 Every country is a little different. For example, TANGO has established a good relationship with a site in Mexico that it has been to multiple times. In Guatemala, it went to multiple different sites and then settled on one.

 “It’s nice to have some hospital facilities for inpatients, for admission after surgery, or to screen patients before surgery, to do blood work. It’s just a nice little hospital in a small town, but it can accommodate our surgeries and our team, and we can do all of our services in one place,” he said of the Guatemala location.

 There can be security concerns in third-world countries, so the outreach teams prefer to stay together at one site, sometimes in a fenced compound. “If you do this kind of work, you network with people that are doing this and find a site that works well for you,” he said.

 When TANGO takes a dental team, it needs an open space to set up all of its mobile equipment. The team can utilize a community center or church and very quickly have an entire dental office set up with four to six chairs and portable dental equipment such as suction, drills, and sterilization equipment, and then “just go to work,” Torrie said.

 Taber has a special connection to Kenya: it has a ‘sister city’ in Bondo and works directly with their municipal government. The two municipalities made the connection through Town of Taber CFO John Orwa, who is from that region.

 Many medical professionals are interested in helping TANGO, but can’t take two to four weeks off, so the outreach has found it can successfully accomplish quite a bit on a 10-day trip.

 “We’ll travel on the weekends, work for one full week, and then get back so they don’t miss too much work,” Torrie said. “We have done longer trips, and we’ll have teams overlap. So a team comes in for a week and goes back, and another team comes in for a second week, with some of us staying for both weeks.”

 TANGO continues to recruit professionals and community members that want to get involved. The outreach is currently doing about three trips a year. Aside from Kenya in February, it had a team in Vietnam last September. Next up is Guatemala in May, and then to Vietnam again in the fall, followed by Fiji.

 “It’s a little…it’s almost hard to sleep at night,” Torrie said. “You see some of people’s desperate situations. You wish you could do more, but we try to bring attention to their needs and try to fundraise for equipment supplies. In these countries, it’s nothing like Canada, that’s for sure. Where we were in Kenya, if you need an ambulance ride, you can’t call an ambulance. If you can get to the nearest medical outpost, an ambulance will come, but you have to pay for it to take you. If you’re a mother in labor and bleeding and you’re going to die, then they’ll take you without payment. Otherwise, you have to pay for them to take you to a hospital.”

 “Many just don’t have the resources. So many just die. Their infant mortality rate death before age one is 20 times higher than Canada, 20 times, not twice or five times, 20 times higher. So it’s just very sad,” he said. “Mother Teresa said, ‘We can’t all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.’ And I think we’re trying to do our small little bit and try and help where we can.”

 A conversation with Torrie about TANGO is truly inspirational and his humility is appreciated, but it’s clear that the foundation’s mission is in fact a great work that has a meaningful impact on many.

TANGO’s outreach numbers are astounding, showing what can be achieved through commitment and a sustained effort. To date, TANGO has:

-donated services valuing $6,141,065.

-taken 536 volunteers on trips.

-served 11,843 total patients.

-served 4,882 medical patients.

-served 4,847 dental patients.

-served 172 eye surgery patients.

-served 1,472 optometry patients.

-provided $2,608,665 in dental services.

-provided $809,000 in general surgery services.

-provided $500,500 in eye surgery services.

-provided $885,150 in optometry services.

-provided $299,500 in construction services.