MISSION SUMMARY:

Date: November 30 - December 10 2023
Location:  Kabala General Hospital, Kabala, Sierra Leone
Team Size: 19
Length of Mission: 11 days
Number of patients seen/triaged: 
Number of Surgeries Performed: 63

 BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

This was ISHI’s eight mission to Kabala Government Hospital in Kabala, Sierra Leone. The ISHI team was invited back to KGH with approval from the Republic Ministry of Health, local municipalities and chiefdoms as well as the hospital leadership. 

We anticipated providing both clinical care and exchange of both technical and clinical information. We planned for adult and pediatric surgical cases including repair of umbilical, inguinal, and femoral hernias, mass excisions, and hydrocelectomies. Furthermore, we planned to train local health care, police, and members of the community with bleeding control exercises with the Stop the Bleed course. 

 PATIENTS AND LOCATION

Patients were alerted, screened, and evaluated weeks before the mission via recruitment from the local healthcare team. We planned to 1) collaborate with the local team to provide surgical and medical care 2) teach capacity building of local providers daily, including providing continuing surgical education to the non-physician surgeons and nursing, and Stop the Bleed Training, and 3) continue to support local humanitarian and charitable initiatives such as the Kabala School of the Blind. 

 MISSION ACHIEVEMENTS:

Patient Care:

• Performed 63 procedures on 60 patients

• Performed short term follow up and treatment/consultation for post-operative issues – 98% follow up rate. 

Teaching:

• 20 hours of hands-on teaching, demonstrations, case discussions between ISHI and local RNs.

• Participation of local anesthesia and surgical staff in numerous operative cases for continuing surgical education and bidirectional knowledge exchange.

• 201 Stop The Bleed Training certificates were given to 151 high school students at Loma High School, 19 teachers, the principal, 20 police officers, and 11 nurses. In total 201 people were taught hemorrhage control techniques over 4 days.  

• Daily  knowledge exchange  with the local CRNA and Anesthesia CHO

• Continued knowledge exchange between ISHI nurses and local ward nurses

Community

• Donation of funds to the Kabala School of the blind from  Debbie Livingston art work

• Donations from multiple team members

 LOCAL TEAM IN SIERRA LEONE:

 MISSION VOLUNTEERS: