A 40-foot container crammed with an operating room table, vital sign monitors, a medical refrigerator, centrifuge, computer, hundreds of medical textbooks, adult mannequins for CPR training, and hundreds of boxes of consumable supplies including sutures, gauze, syringes and other disparately needed material is currently en route to Sierra Leone. The equipment and supplies were part of a wish list created by the surgeons at Connaught Hospital and the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health. NYSIHS members TB Kamara and Peter Kingham highlighted the massive need after conducting a country assessment based on the WHO surgical capacity situational analysis tool. Back in New York, NYSIHS collaborated with the Afya Foundation (www.afyafoundation.org); a New York based non-profit organization specializing in recovering and shipping surplus medical supplies and equipment from New York hospitals. On June 9th in near 100 degree (32 degrees C) heat, a team of Afya staff and NYSIHS volunteers met at the Afya warehouse and load the container. The scheduled arrival is for mid-July to coincide with the Surgeons OverSeas (SOS) mission and the Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (E2SC) workshops.
Photo by Jim Metzger
In February 2008, NYSIHS conducted a needs assessment in Sierra Leone and based on the WHO surgical capacity situational analysis tool,a needs assessment in February, 2008 in Sierra Leone. One of the striking findings was that all of the public hospitals lack even the simplest supplies, and no hospital has any emergency stores. After identifying this problem, we collaborated with the AFYA Foundation, a non-profit organization that collects excess supplies from New York hospitals. A group of private donors agreed to cover all the costs of the container, and on June 9th, a 40 foot container was filled with surgical and hospital supplies and shipped to Connaught Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone. The shipment is timed to arrive when Adam is in Sierra Leone assisting in organizing WHO training courses. The supplies in the container will assist Dr. TB Kamara, the head of surgery at Connaught, and Adam with both the training courses and general patient care.
Items in the container include OR tables, surgical instruments, training mannequins, disposable supplies, and surgical textbooks. There are enough books to create a small library at Connaught. We look forward to hearing from Dr. Kamara and Adam once the container arrives and the supplies have been put to use.
Afya teamed up with the New York Society of International Humanitarian Surgeons to fulfill their request to send a container to Connaught Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone Dr Peter Kingham, after conducting a thorough needs assessment at the hospital (using World health Organization criteria), submitted a significant “surgical suite” wish list to Afya in order to create improved surgical capacity with improved access to essential items for care. The container included an operating room table. 40 IV poles, vital sign monitors, medical refrigerator, centrifuge, computer and hundreds of medical textbooks. We even packed adult mannequins for CPR training, In addition, hundreds of boxes of consumable supplies were packed. The supplies will arrive in time for Dr. Adam Kushner to lead a surgical training program at the hospital this summer.
