Over 30 for surgery at annual neurosurgical camp

By Gloria Nakajubi

Unlike other teenagers her age, Rehemah Nambasa’s school life was put on hold owing to persistent backache and partial paralysis that started in 2010.

She has since been surviving on painkillers and could hardly walk unsupported. After visiting a number of health facilities with no apparent solution, the family was on the verge of giving up.

Now Nambasa is currently recovering after a seven-hour operation carried out on Monday. She is one of the 30 patients that were lined up for this year’s neuro-surgical camp at Mulago National Referral Hospital in collaboration with a team from the Duke University in the US.

A medical team led by Prof. Michael Haglavend of Duke  Global Health Institute performing an operation. The institute  does brain tumour surgery twice a year at the national referral hospital, Mulago. April 21, 2015. PHOTO/Norman Katende

According to consultant neurosurgeon, Michael Muhumuza, Nambasa had a complex case of a tumour in the spinal cord.

Eugene Arinaitwe, a resident of Entebbe is the other patient that has so far been operated and says it is a miracle since he had been asked to start looking for about sh70m for surgery abroad.

He was diagnosed with a tumour at the back of the neck which was creating pressure on the nerves hence the continued numbness in his arms and legs.

The 40-year old says previously he disregarded the symptoms thinking they were just as a result of exhaustion from work until his left leg eventually got paralysed.

“In some health facilities, they were only giving me vitamin supplements and recommending physical exercises which never yielded much,” he says.

The annual neurosurgical camp that is supported by experts from Duke University offers free surgical procedures for complex conditions.

According to Professor Michael Haglund, the lead neurosurgeon at the camp, they are targeting such conditions as meningioma (a tumour that arises from the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord), pituitary tumours( affect the pituitary gland which is a master gland that produces hormones and controls all the other glands) and spinal cord tumours.

The team of 17 experts includes anesthetists, neurologists with special skills in brain tumour surgery and biomedical engineers among others who are working closely with members of the neurology department at Mulago.

Muhumuza explained that with just about six neurologists in the country, four at the national referral hospital and the
two others in Mbale and Mbarara, the facility is sometimes overwhelmed by the numbers.

It is therefore such partnerships as Muhumuza noted that help them in managing the patient crisis.

According to the expert, health workers in the lower facilities should be able to interrogate cases of severe headaches associated with vomiting and not responding to pain killers, numbness, paralysis, loss of vision, impaired mobility depending on the location of the tumour. These have to be referred to Mulago.

Muhumuza who is also the head of the neuro-surgery ward says that they receive over 500 patients per year with majority of cases as a result of trauma especially as caused by accidents.

Muhumuza noted that there is an ongoing training programme in partnership with the Duke University to have at least two neurosurgeons in each district by 2020.

The programme so far has six students with two expected to graduate next year.

According to the expert, these procedures would cost about sh5m-sh15m under private arrangements in the country.

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Over 30 for surgery at annual neurosurgical camp