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CAGS International Surgery Member's Projects
Our humanitarian foundation offers basic health care to isolated African villages, participates in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and contributes to the training of human resources both in Canada and in the host countries of Gabon, Bénin, Tanzania and Uganda.
CACHA works in partnership with many Canadian and African organizations in order to pursue these objectives:
- To provide basic health care and contribute to the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS,
- To help isolated communities to become self-sufficient,
- To train and supply local medical staff with necessary tools,
- To offer the opportunity to students to do internships in southern countries and
- To improve life conditions of isolated African villages.
Contact: Dr. Robin Fairfull-Smith, Ottawa RSMITH@Ottawahospital.on.ca
Medicos en Action is a Kamloops based charitable organization with members from around the world that travels to Guatemala for two to three weeks each year at the end of January/early February.
We have three components to our team. The largest part of our team goes to Antigua Guatemala and performs surgical procedures (general surgery, gynecology, ENT and occasionally plastics) as well as a hearing clinic team that does hearing testing and fitting and supply of hearing aids. We have a smaller surgical team that goes to Patzun and performs general surgery and gynecology.
The third part of our team is a medical team that does outreach clinics to villages near Lago Atitlan providing public health and primary care as well as interacting with the local health care providers.
Our team consists of surgeons, physicians, anesthestists, OR nurses, PAR nurses, public health nurses and support staff.
Medicins Sans Frontieres - Somalia
"... Fear of this type of setting combined with the inertia that exists in an established surgical practice would tend to keep one at home. This anxiety can be reduced in several ways ..."
"My experience in Somalia was one of the highlights of my professional career..."
Dr. Patrick Whelan
Read Dr. Whelan's full article in the Spring 2008 CAGS newsletter, page 10
Also Dr. John Barnhill has been with MSF in Somalia; here are his comments and a photo:
"From December 2007 to February 2008 I worked with MSF Swiss as surgeon in Beletweyne, Somalia. Through MSF (Medcins sans Frontieres) our security concerns were well looked after and we were able to provide a high level of service to an area of extreme and acute need.
My responsibilities there included training Somalia national staff, assessing and planning facilities and capacity, some elective surgery and much urgent surgery. Primarily, we dealt with obstetrical emegencies, trauma from gunshots and blasts. Unfortunatley most of those injured were children.
The project was very rewarding and heartening despite the difficult circumstances. The evolution and change facilitated by our efforts goes far beyond the objective improvements in health indicators, as our interactions show human connection beyond the limitations of the barriers that make these isolated populations feel forgotten."
Namo Buddha Medical Clinic - Nepal
Namo Buddha Medical Clinic is located in rural Nepal, a bumpy two hour drive from Kathmandu. The smallclinic was set up in 1995 by the local Buddhist monastery to provide free basic health care for the villagers of the area. The people who inhabit this area are extremely poor, subsistence farmers with no spare money for health care and no government support.
As more local villagers have become more aware of the medical service offered at the Namo Buddha Medical Clinic, and an increase in patients and medical needs has escalated. As a result, the current building, with two small rooms, has become inadequate to deal with the expanding patient population.
A new small hospital building will be completed by the fall of 2008 and will facilitate the provision of inpatient and laboratory services.
We are not yet at a level where we can offer elective surgery, but we are actively developing programs at Namo Buddha Clinic for which we need volunteers and funds. These include primary and secondary care, purchasing of medical equipment, protocol development, training monks as clinicians and health care assistants; public health programs. If you would like to learn more about this project please visit:
John Barnhill
 
 
Telementoring in Botswana
"This has been Dr. Okrainec's Tuesday routine for the past six weeks: First, establish a reliable Internet connection between two doctors' offices in Toronto and Botswana. Dr. Allan Okrainec simulates minimally invasive surgery in Toronto while a doctor in Botswana, shown on the projection screen, learns the technique. Then, teach a small group of eager Botswana-based surgeons the basics of a minimally invasive surgical technique that is increasingly common in Western nations due to its health benefits - but rarely used in Africa.
Laparoscopic surgery, also known as "keyhole surgery," involves inserting a microscopic camera and ultra-slim instruments into the patient through tiny incisions, avoiding the large cuts associated with traditional open surgeries.
With most of a surgeon's work broadcast on an operating room television screen anyway, laparoscopic surgery is surprisingly well-suited to the Internet. To teach his course, Dr. Okrainec demonstrates skills, such as cutting and suturing, on a simulation device. In Gaborone, Botswana's capital city, the surgeons practice their skills while Dr. Okrainec looks on. A projection screen shows both sides what's happening in real time, and questions and instructions are exchanged through headsets.
The only equipment required in both countries is a laptop, a television screen and a web cam.
"That's what's really unique about this," says Dr. Okrainec. "It costs them really nothing."
This experiment in medical instruction is designed to teach other doctors skills they may not be able to learn in Botswana due to a lack of equipment, funding and
training.
If it's successful, the two Canadians who designed the program - Dr. Okrainec and Georges Azzie, a pediatric surgeon at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children - hope it can help train doctors in developing nations around the world.
Project Nepal is an Canadian initiative supporting medical and development work in the country of Nepal. The project focuses on supporting the work of several mission hospitals in remote rural areas of the Himalayas in the areas of medical charity work and providing volunteer physicians to support the local physicians and assist in training the Nepali residents. The project also is building capacity of a local NGO which serves as a "patient navigator" for people being referred to Kathmandu from remote areas of the country for specialized care. This includes a Child Rehabilitation Fund and a Child Heart Fund which covers the cost of these services for children whose families cannot afford to pay for this type of medical care.
The view from Tansen Mission Hospital:
Some local children from Tansen, Nepal:
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