MEDICS from South Devon have been working miracles in Kenya, donating their skills and holiday leave to spend a week in one of the country’s rural hospitals.
A trauma and orthopaedic team, including surgeons and physios from Torbay Hospital, has just returned from Nyahururu District Hospital.
While there they performed more than 200 consultations and three to four operations a day. They worked side-by-side with local Kenyan staff, providing valuable training too.
Nine-year-old Rose arrived at the hospital last Monday in tears with a broken arm.
Within an hour the team had operated and repaired her. If they hadn’t been there she would have had to travel many miles for the surgery and it’s possible her mother couldn’t have afforded the operation.
Rose, like all the patients treated by the team at Nyahururu, received a hat made by volunteer knitters at Torbay Hospital while she was recovering.
The medics volunteered with Future Health Africa, a UK-based charity that has been sending health teams to rural Kenya since 2009. Outside of Kenya’s major cities hospitals have limited or no orthopaedic facilities.
All volunteers work, or have worked, in the NHS, or are Kenyans working in government facilities.
They all give their time for free and pay their own expenses.
A second team from the West Country is presently working at another rural hospital in Marsabit.
Last year Ltakani, a young herder from the Samburu region of Kenya, was referred to a volunteer trauma team after one of his cows fell on top of him and dislocated his hip.
Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Guy Wansbrough, from Shaldon, led the reconstructive surgery of Ltakani’s hip, working side-by-side with the local Kenyan medics and a UK theatre team.
Within weeks Ltakani was out of a cast and walking with crutches. He’s now back to full health and herding cattle again with his father.
As well as the trauma teams and training of local staff the charity also runs maternity teams and goes into schools to offer health advice.
= To help support the valuable work the teams carry out visit http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/FHATraumaTeamNov19