Korle Bu team performs free surgeries at Bole
A team of medical specialists and paramedics from the National Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Burns Centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra has performed surgery on 192 patients at Bole in the Northern Region.
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The team, led by Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah, treated 119 hernia cases, 26 hydrocephalus cases, 30 growth (tumour and lump) cases, a goitre, an amputation, skin grafting and keloids.
Beneficiaries
The beneficiaries were made up of 123 males and 69 females and were between eight months and 80 years.
During the six-day outreach programme, the medical team supplied free drugs to patients, while the National Health Insurance Scheme provided support for some other services.
This year’s outreach event was sponsored mainly by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and was the latest in what has become an annual event which had taken the medical team to the Northern, Upper West, Volta, Brong Ahafo and Central regions in the last decade.
For a sector whose professionals had stretched the patience of society with some strike that had led to fatalities, the travelling contingent of 31 medical, paramedical and auxiliary personnel and their resident counterparts showed their compassionate side and care for society.
Dr Ampomah said the outreach programme was part of their annual activities to offer surgical care to persons in rural and deprived areas where many were too poor to afford such services.
Overwhelming cases
Besides, he said, plastic surgery services were only available in Accra and Kumasi, where the about 12 plastic surgeons in all of Ghana were based, meaning that such services were too far from many persons, especially the rural communities.
“In some of the areas, even where surgeons are available they are sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases, and this limits their attention to emergency cases,” he said.
Dr Ampomah expressed delight at the success of this year’s programme during which 69 females were treated for hernia.
He said the programme was their support for society, given their calling, and explained that their trip to the Bole District Hospital was at the instance of the medical superintendent, Dr Josephat Nyuzaghl, who
“placed a distress call that there were many cases requiring surgery, including plastic surgery”.
The team had three reconstructive plastic surgeons, three general surgeons, three anesthetists, five theatre nurses, two critical care nurses, a public health nurse, a general nurse, and others. Members of the team were supported by resident medical staff.
Dr Gerald Feikiman Jatuat, a resident medical doctor at the hospital, said the facility performed between 10 and 15 surgical cases every month and the numbers that showed up for just the six days of the programme emphasised the surgical needs of the people.