Our new operating theatres were opened in 2012 and a wide range of surgery takes place. This includes periodic camps with visiting specialists. We recently hosted Dr. Keith Waddell with a team from Ruharo Eye Centre in Mbarara who worked with our Ophthalmology Assistant Benon and operated on around 35 patients in 3 days, many having their sight restored after cataracts. We had Keith for a meal and it brought back many memories as we found his name in our visitors book from 25 years earlier when he had come on a similar "Eye Safari".
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| Dr. Deo |
Dr. Deo from Mbarara came with a team linked to North Kigezi Diocese to run an Orthopaedic Camp.
Many children benefited from surgery and our Paediatric Ward was even fuller than usual with the post-operative cases. As they improved they moved up to the Rehabilitation Unit where many are still staying in the dormitories as they are supported to mobilise with physiotherapy.
Our Orthopaedic Officer Bedard, Phyiotherapist Night and Occupational Therapist Alozius have had a busy Easter!
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| post-op child with small bottles covering the ends of pins |
Other specialists include colleagues from Royal Berkshire Hospital working with Dr. Gabriel on Urological cases. These visits are a great help to Kisiizi and are allowing us to develop our in-house expertise to the extent that Dr. Gabriel received a referral from Mulago Hospital, the main government teaching hospital in Kampala about 7-8 hours drive away!
Of course one key aspect of successful surgery is good Anaesthesia. We are grateful to Gershom, Medius and Andrew, our Anaesthetic clinical officers who have provided our 24 hour service. We have just said goodbye to a recently retired Consultant Anaesthetist, Dr. Angela Cooper, who came as a volunteer with Church Mission Society for six months to help us. She has provided valuable input into various areas including Pain Relief and given us helpful advice on High Dependency Care as well as her support in the Anaesthetics team. She has kindly agreed to help us acquire some much-needed equipment for general anaesthesia as our current equipment is decades old and, though it has served us remarkably well, is showing its age! We do not have, nor do we intend to acquire, piped gases as would be used in western hospitals so traditional Boyles' Anaesthetics Machines are not practical here and we use more basic but effective draw-over equipment.
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| Dr. Anglea cutting her Goodbye and Thank-you cake |
Dr. Angela is hoping we can obtain two portable Glostavent DPAO1machines which cost 2,750 pounds sterling each. If anyone is able to help towards this cost we would be most grateful - please contact Ian on khmedsup@gmail.com.
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| Dr. Robert |
Looking ahead we will welcome Dr. Robert back in a couple of months when he will have completed his 3 year training as a specialist General Surgeon. He has been generously sponsored by our friends at St. Paul's Church in Dublin who also provided the funds for the new operating theatres and previously for the two storey ward block housing Maternity and Paediatrics so we are extremely grateful for their invaluable support.
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| Michael & Melissa Webb kindly hosted us during our visit to St. Paul's Church in Dublin in January 2013 and have worked tirelessly to support Kisiizi |
We are in the process of renovating our very old building that houses our Surgery Ward. It was actually the centre of the original flax factory which was taken over as Kisiizi Hospital in 1958. We are grateful for supporters in St. Mark's Church and Putnoe Heights Methodist Church in Bedford who have contributed towards this cost. We are hopeful that this will allow us to renovate the first ward area [what used to be the old maternity ward in the past] with proper terrazo floors that we will be able to clean properly rather than the current very poor cracked concrete floors that are impossible to clean adequately. Any support towards the much-needed renovation of the second ward area will be very gratefully received. Thank you.
So all these strands are coming together as we aim to further improve the quality of our surgical services. Following the successful seminars we ran recently for World Health Organisation, Kisiizi has been asked to participate in a further 4 year WHO programme on Safe Surgery. We are waiting to hear if we have been formally approved for this by Uganda Ministry of Health but hope that Dr. Gabriel may be able to attend a meeting in Geneva next month to launch the programme which is being run by WHO in co-operation with John Hopkins university in USA.
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