Sierra Leone: Over 100 cases, 72 major surgeries in 5 days by Saving Lives

 After hectic five days of work in Kabala Government Hospital, the district headquarter of Koinadugu, the medical team from Saving Lives Initiatives (SLI) were able to successfully examined and treat over one hundred (100) cases and perform critical and major surgeries on seventy-two patients with no single complication.

on Friday 15th April 2016 at the Kabala hospital after performing the last operations, the head of the team, Ralph Salvagno (MD) expressed his appreciations to the local medical team and locals in that part of the country especially the traditional leaders for their tolerance and love demonstrated during their ‘short’ stay in the country. Dr. Salvagno has performed approximately 70% of all joint replacement surgeries in Washington County, has established himself as the pre-eminent orthopedic surgeon in the area.

The Medical Doctor said they are not more focus on the number of cases treated but rather the level of relationship and confidence they had built, pointing out that the local staffs were very instrumental from start of the exercise to the end. He said lots of experiences were shared on both sides from the ways of treating certain cases to ways of performing certain types of surgeries which according to him was part of their success stories during the visit.
“If you remember at the beginning of the week, we said the number of cases was not important or number of people but our presence here is to establish the relationship and serve as motivators to other groups out there that want to undertake similar venture in assisting your people,” Dr. Salvagno pointed out.

“If our brothers and sisters can come over with similar team to their respective districts the health status of our people will be far better than it is at present because there are more out there that are doctors, nurses, engineers, among others,” noted Malik Jalloh, one of the Sierra Leoneans in the group.
Malik was making this plea whilst expressing his frustration over the health status of citizens especially in Koinadugu district with bad roads and hard-to-reach places, stating that he was able to make their trip to Sierra Leone a success because of the passion he had for the country. He said convincing the medical team of twelve (12) to come and offer the free operations was not easy on his part because the country was facing health threat but their coming has significantly laid that fear of which they are hopeful of coming in October.