Patients with broken limbs get free surgery at Mulago

PIC: A patient being operated on at the free surgical trauma camp. (Credit: Agnes Kyotalengereire)

HEALTH | MULAGO HOSPITAL

A total of 35 patients with broken limbs last week received free surgical treatment at Mulago Hospital.

This was during a five-day trauma surgical camp conducted by a group of surgeons and post graduate students from Mulago hospital's the orthopaedic department, in partnership with visiting surgeons from the University of British Columbia, in Canada.

According to Dr. Geoffrey Madewo, a senior consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Mulago Hospital, the camp greatly benefited patients who could not afford to pay for surgery.

"Implants for trauma surgery are expensive and majority of patients cannot afford it," he said.

At the trauma ward, one beneficiary Kenneth Akansasira, 17, who had been at the hospital  ward for five weeks, was operated upon on Friday.

Akansasira is recovering well. He is grateful to the team of surgeons who operated on him successfully.

 According to Juliet Nalunkuma, the nursing officer-in-charge of the trauma ward, Akansasira can now sit-up and walk with the support of crutches.

Akansarira sustained a fracture of the femur (thigh bone) after he was run down by a speeding car as he crossed the road in Bwaise, a city suburb.

Nalunkuma said the trauma ward at the hospital is full of patients with broken legs and hands, resulting from road traffic accidents, especially bodabodas (motorcycles).

"Some patients lie on the floor and others in corridors. Each wing (male and female) has a bed capacity of only 30 patients.

Dr. Madewo estimates that on average, the orthopaedic department at Mulago hospital receives between five to seven patients of trauma daily.