Kelvin's trip to Ethiopia - Facing africa

Above : The Hospital Above : the People

kelvin writes:

"This year the NOMA team went out to Addis for a total of 10 weeks. We sent out a team for preparation of the the patients 2 weeks before the main surgical team. This included feeding, cleaning & de worming amongst other things! The main team arrived on the 4th October staying until 18th October (so I missed the grading). It consisted of 5 surgeons (2 French & 3 British), 2 anaesthetists, 1 scrub nurse, 1 ward nurse plus, of course, Chris& Terry who run Facing Africa.

Using a local hospital we managed to treat over 40 patients surgically, this mainly consisted of children with the effect of NOMA, but we also helped some burn victims, gun shot injuries, some tumours & some post traumatic facial injuries. we even had to amputate an infected hand injury repair someone axed in the face, We also advised on other conditions to help the local medical staff.

I was invited to lecture to all the medical staff in Addis. When the main team left a doctor remained or the post operative care as required. Every day was busy as you can imagine but we were kindly taken out each evening courtesy of Facing Africa. Making the trip very enjoyable & a tremendous learning experience.

It was quite humbling to see how the patients smile through such terrible adversity.

Regards Kelvin"

Kelvin attached a few photos but probably not quite suitable for the blog. (Some photos now added)

If you haven't seen before the work that Kelvin does with the Facing Africa charity please take a look at the links in the sidebar.

"Facing Africa" is a really worth while cause and where hard earned money is spent wisely. If you are thinking of doing something for a charity please consider them.

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