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| A Brief Report from Sierra Leone, Dec. 7, 2008 |
A renowned spine surgeon from Hungary was at the St. John of God Catholic Hospital here in Sierra Leone, along with some of the German orthopedic surgical team. Dr. Zsolt was frustrated that the hospital’s surgical theater and equipment was not adequate to allow him to do complex spinal surgery. He was especially concerned about Judith, a two-and-a-half year old girl with a congenital spinal deformity who he felt was on the verge of becoming paralyzed. Fortunately Judith had already been introduced as a surgical candidate into our program. Her parents had even taken my advice and had previously gotten visas for Judith and her mother. This must have cost what for them was a lot of money. Dr. Boachie, the director and head surgeon of the Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine (FOCOS), knows Dr. Zsolt and agreed to make room in the surgical schedule for Judith. I spent a few days getting airline tickets and making arrangement s for Judith and her mother to fly to Accra. Judith had surgery, along with four other of our Sierra Leonean patients. The latest report is that, less than two weeks after surgery, all five have been discharged from the hospital in Accra and are doing well as they continue to recover at the FOCOS GHANA CLINIC. Unfortunately, two young Sierra Leoneans were not able to have surgery this time because of having developed coughs. We will have to send these two youngsters, both of whom are named Mohamed, back to Ghana for surgery by a FOCOS team, hopefully this May.
The Germans were able to correct club feet on all three of the patients we brought to them in the one week they worked in Sierra Leone. So nine year old Mary Kalokoh, who had her left club foot straightened last year, will eventually be able to return the crutches we bought her and will be able to walk on the bottoms of both of her feet for the first time in her life. Abu Bakar Kanu, age 10, had his first of two club foot straightened. Teenager Alusine Sesay had his one club foot straightened. He will need no further help from us except for a bad hernia he suffers with.
Over forty hernia surgeries have already been repaired for us by the two surgeons at the Holy Spirit Catholic Hospital here 100 miles up-country in Makeni Town. The remainder of the 56 patients screened for hernia surgeries will possibly be done before Christmas. At least one person a day, and usually more than one, stops me on my bicycle or when on foot to tell me that they suffer from a hernia or have a relative who needs our help with this problem. It is heart breaking to have to tell them that our program is currently closed until we get more funding. Hopefully we will have the courage to screen another group in the faith that the funds will be there.
Water borne diseases have been a problem. We had to send a nine year old boy to a specialist in the capital city for an emergency re-sectioning of his intestine due to having contracted typhoid fever. This was a tough decision to make as it did not seem likely that Amidu would survive even with treatment, and the money might be better spent on other more hopeful prospects. However, I know Amidu’s great-grand mother who is raising him in our village, so I had little choice if I wanted to be able to face her almost every day I am here. Amidu did almost not make it. But Foday, my newest counterpart, was able to get the needed extra units of blood in Freetown and Amidu is now looking pretty good. I have since learned that he had gone about 20 days without eating any food! This morning I was shown another case, a teenager who is displaying symptoms of dysentery. Our water purification program helps a lot of people in and around the Catholic hospital where it is set-up, supplying them free of charge, but it is limited. The vast majority of people here in Sierra Leone go without safe drinking water.
Two specialist surgeons in reconstructive plastic surgery, one form Scotland and one form Ghana, came to visit the new wing of the Holy Spirit Hospital which is equipped with a special microscope needed to do delicate work on burnt or traumatized hands and feet. They liked what they saw and plans are being made for them to return with a team early in 2009 to start repairing hands and feet as well as training local Sierra Leonean surgeons and medics in surgical and theater techniques. They examined the two girls whom we sent to them in Ghana last year to have a hand and a foot repaired. They were happy with the results, though the girl with the burnt foot will likely need further surgery as she grows. They also want to treat children born with cleft lips and pallets. We are now starting to locate and register such cases in the hope that Smile Train will also send a surgeon and even some funds to help with this our newest program.
A team of four medical professionals, including two OB/GYN surgeons, will be coming here from the U.S. on January ninth to spend a week surgically treating about 20 or more women with various problems. We will help the Catholic diocese to host them. Foday has already been bringing women on the back of his motorcycle to the hospital for screening by the doctor. Also in January, two representatives from the Foundation of Orthopedics and Complex Spine (FOCOS) will be visiting us for eight days. The nurse practitioner and the research coordinator will be examining 30 of our/their post-op spinal surgery cases as well as many new cases and cases who have been waiting and hoping for our help with their spinal deformities. Last year 103 cases were seen. The number seeking our help has grown, so the work load can only increase for these two hard working American ladies.
Foday and I have taken three men for cataract surgery at the Baptist Eye Hospital here in Sierra Leone. One man had his sight restored in November. The other two are scheduled for treatment in January and February. This Wednesday Foday and I will be bringing another five blind people to have their eyes examined in the hope that they two might benefit from cataract surgery. I’ll let you know.
In my absence, another of my counterparts, John, had the authority to send people with rotten teeth to a “tooth puller” in his village who once had worked as an apprentice to a real dentist. Because Korimu’s track record and price is good, we supplied him with some new teeth pulling tools last year. I will be paying his bill as soon as John returns from Ghana where he is looking after our spinal surgery children. Meanwhile Korimu still extends us credit and willingly extracts aching molars from the mouths of villagers I send to him with my signed-promisary notes.
I have been corrected by Sister Philomina, the director of the Loreto Health Clinic, here in Makeni Town. I had been under the impression that the funds ASI regularly sends to her through her religious order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, were only being used to stabilize about 20 victims of epilepsy. Sister Philo assures me that the number is being helped with either epilepsy or with other problems is closer to 90 each month. The incidence of epilepsy is high here due to high fevers from malaria, meningitis and other maladies which cause the brain to swell and suffer pressure damage. The Loreto Clinic is one of only two facilities offering medical help for these people in this part of West Africa. They also deal with the medical and health needs of mothers and their young children, from pre-natal, to immunizations, to malaria and other diseases, to treatment for infections, contusions, and burns.
Thanks for having read this and for your past support of funding, prayers, and the various other efforts many of you have been making for our work. Thank you also to all who have sponsored students for this school year. I have been visiting with many of these students, collecting your thank you notes, and “snapping” them with my digital camera. Our website is still: africasurgery.org, (no www. in front), our postal address: ASI, 189 Franklin St., Morristown, NJ 07960.
Tom |
