Teesside cardiothoracic surgeon heads to Ghana to give life-saving surgery
A team of 10 volunteers are heading to West Africa
A cardiothoracic surgeon in Teesside is providing life-saving surgery in West Africa for the next seven days.
Arrhythmia Alliance Hearts of Ghana say 10 volunteers will be going to Accra in Ghana, to the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC). During the mission, the team, led by cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Enoch Akowuah from James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, will supervise and assist the local surgical team in complex cases and continue the on-going work of upskilling the UGMC cardiac team during their stay.
Dr. Enoch Akowuah, who works for South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "This is our sixth visit or mission to Ghana. Our main job there over the last few years is to set up the second cardiac surgery unit. Ghana has a population of 35-million or so and there's only one cardiac surgery unit in the country.
"We'll be teaching lots of medical staff skills and showing knowledge to help them treat patients. We'll be operating on patients, particularly patients who can't afford to pay for surgery, we'll be doing scans to make diagnosis on patients and we'll also be having an outpatient clinic and consultations giving advice about cardiac care.
"The cardiac surgery unit on Teesside looks after about a million patients. Ghana has 35-million people and only has one cardiac surgery unit, so you can see there's a huge under provision of cardiac services and to have quite a lot of Sub-Saharan Africa who don't have any access at all to any cardiac surgery is a real problem.
"Cardiovascular disease is a huge worldwide problem. Traditionally we've always thought about it as a western-world problem, so in the UK we know that about one in every three deaths every year is from cardiovascular disease but things are changing dramatically in places like Africa, as people are living longer and they're getting wealthier, cardiovascular disease isbecoming a real problem there as well.
"One of the things we're doing there this year is we're setting up a cardiac arrest service in the hospital, so they don't have any advanced life support training there and that's a huge thing in a hospital beacuse there's so many sick people where a lot of them have cardiac events, and having a team that's trained to go around the hospital treating those is critical. We have that in every NHS hospital in the UK.
"When we go to Ghana, we have people coming from Liberia, Sierra Leona and Burkina Faso which are neighbouring countries where there's no cardiac services at all, so very much we're hoping that when we set up these services in Ghana and they're working, they'll definitely be attracting patients from the wider sub-region."
A-A Hearts of Ghana say their mission is to provide life-saving surgery to those who would not otherwise have access and to train local cardiac teams to be able to perform these operations. In addition to the surgical cases that will be performed during the week, the team will also host educational sessions and hands on training, including a wet lab, for the local healthcare professionals.
It says cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally, responsible for 17.5 million deaths each year, 80% of which occur in LMIC, including countries in Africa.
A-A Hearts of Ghana say cardiothoracic surgery, with its heavy financial burden, is unavailable to many, so the building of a sustainable heart centre is critical.
Dr Baffoe Gyan, from the University of Ghana Medical Centre, said: “The history of UGMC Cardiac department (UGMC Heart Centre) can’t be written without our UK team from Arrhythmia Alliance. They came down to set up our centre, did the first open heart surgery and continue to support us to build a sustainable Cardiac Centre.”
Trudie Lobban MBE, founder of Arrhythmia Alliance, said: "The success in Ghana exemplifies that collaboration in cardiac care is essential and Arrhythmia Alliance is proud to operate on the ethos of collaboration as we strive for access to life-saving care for patients across the globe."