Fred Hafasha is clinical officer in Uganda. Ronald Vierhout and Peter Reemst, both consulting surgeons from the Netherlands that worked together with him in Mutolere Hospital, invited him to attend the symposium and to present the following talk:
In rural Uganda, there is a great shortage of surgical care.
Most hospitals don’t have a specialised surgeon and if there is one, he cannot cover 7 x 24 care.
The surgical workload has enormously increased over the last 10 years due to several factors.
There is an improvement is basic health care where people with surgical cases are diagnosed and referred to the hospital. On the other hand there is a huge increase in trauma, due to the availability of more motorised vehicles combined with bad road conditions.
This has led to many acute admissions for trauma and need for surgical care.
To tackle this problem, Mutolere Hospital has a clinical officer in trauma and orthopaedics who has been trained in the following fields:
1. Emergency trauma care.
2. Basic surgical care of wounds including burns.
3. Fracture treatment with POP, traction and external fixation.
4. Split skin grafting.
5. Basic techniques for osteomyelitis.
During the presentation examples of the above will be presented combined with hospital data on admissions. The role of Clinical Officers in Surgical Care in Uganda will be discussed.