Outreach to Oshakati February 2025

In February, we once again travelled to Oshakati/Namibia for a mission. Due to communication problems between the Ministry of Health and the hospital as well as within the hospital, this mission could only take place for one week. Nevertheless, we were again able to perform numerous operations with our local colleague Dr Alexej and two colleagues in training and use them for training. We were supported by paediatric anaesthetist Dr Nanyalo from the central hospital in Windhoek. We were able to operate on a total of 45 children. Although I was travelling alone as a paediatric surgeon with my wife Marina, we were able to work in a safe environment thanks to the excellent support of our local colleagues. The cooperation with the paediatric surgery department in Windhoek also continues to work well; we were able to transfer one child there directly after it became clear that it would need several operations in a row.

A new government will take office in Namibia in mid-March. We are hoping for continued good cooperation; the next mission is planned for February 2026.

12th outreach to Bembéréké/Benin from March 31st till April 11th

We had a large team in Bembéréké this time. Dr Christian Hess, anaesthetist, and Dr Katharina Herrmann, paediatric surgeon in training, have already been on site several times, and we were joined by Dr Karin Lawrenz, paediatric surgeon, and Dr Jasmin Pilatzek, paediatric surgeon in training. The team was completed by Marina and Hartwig Sauter and our technician Uwe Buchwitz.

Despite a change in the management of the hospital administration, this assignment was also very well prepared, we were looked after perfectly, including by Marina, and were able to concentrate fully on our work. We spent almost every day in the operating theatre until 22:00 and performed a total of 69 operations on 62 children. We benefited from the experience of Christan Hess, who supported the local anaesthetists, particularly in the case of small children.

As in previous missions, the focus was on operations on children with facial clefts and burn contractures, mostly of the hands. Of these, 11 were operated on. The other operations were spread across the entire spectrum of paediatric surgery. We were also pleased with the children who came for check-ups or planned second operations, where we saw that the first operations had healed very well. Our patients with narrowing of the oesophagus are also developing well; in one patient who was initially unable to feed through the oesophagus, the direct access to the stomach could now be removed as she is able to eat well thanks to regular bougienage.

We are pleased that this outreach also went well and that we all returned home safe and sound.

PV system further optimised

During our visit in April, our technician Uwe Buchwitz was able to optimise many of the system’s settings. It had been working reliably over the past year, but several problems had come to light during the remote monitoring, which Uwe was able to address during these two weeks. For example, it was noticed that the temperatures in the technical building were far too high, which meant that the converters were only working at half capacity. This could be optimised by installing an additional air conditioning system. During these two weeks, he was also able to familiarise the electrician, who is to continue to look after the system, with the function of the system.

There have been no more power failures in the operating theatre wing, paediatrics and neonatology, which were our primary areas of focus, over the entire year that the system has been in operation! This really is a great improvement compared to several outages per day before the solar system was installed.

We would like to thank Uwe once again for his continuous and selfless commitment in this area!

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