General anesthesia is rarely available in Isiro, DRC. Grace Hospital has a PAACS-trained Board-certified surgeon who is limited to SAB and ketamine. I have arranged for a Diamedica DPA03 Anesthesia unit and O2 concentrators to be shipped there. Additional supplies have been ordered from the Joint Medical Store in Kampala, and I will hand-carry additional gear and meds on November 9-11. Routine flights get me from SFO to Entebbe. From there, MAF chartered flights get me to Isiro, DRC. I am seeking support for both. I will be caring for patients and teaching intubation and the use of Halothane to DRC-trained nurse anesthetists.
Rural poor in northeast DRC benefit: women and children especially. Isiro has several hundred thousand refugees, and a permanent population of about 200,000. The local average income is about $300/year. The surgeon, Dr. Jean Claude Bataneni, will be able to practice his full range of skills when general anesthesia is available. A Swiss surgical team will be present for one week of my stay as well.
I performed an identical service at Nebobongo Hospital, DRC, in 2011- arranging for a basic Diamedica anesthesia kit, other necessary gear, necessary basic meds- and I trained a Congolese nurse anesthetist in intubation skills and basic halothane-based GA. They were able to carry on when I left and several hundred essential Halothane anesthesia-based surgeries each year have been accomplished since then.
This trip was concerned with establishing the ability to do general anesthesia at Grace Hospital in Isiro, DRC. In preparation for this, $27,000 of Diamedica anesthesia equipment, much other equipment, and a store of medications required for general anesthesia, had been shipped to Grace Hospital over the preceding months. My role was to get this equipment set up and and organized and to teach basic anesthesiology principles and practice, as much as possible, to the anesthesia technician pictured in several of the photos.
In addition to leaving valuable clinical skills behind, many patients received major surgeries requiring general anesthesia that would not otherwise have been possible. In this regard, the trip was a rebounding success, although language barriers and organizational issues provided significant challenges. There are an estimated 2 million people in the catchment area around.Isiro who will benefit from this improved capacity in anesthesiology and healthcare. Doximity’s grant to this Mission’s travel expenses had a significant impact on our expenses and overall mission. I and the staff of Grace Hospital are very grateful for this assistance, and the impact will be ongoing. Thank you!
