Surgeon’s overseas mission
Ealing surgeon Sala Abdalla brought the season of goodwill to Africa by organising more than 100 free surgical procedures with the charity Operation International UK.
Sala travelled to Ghana with a group of clinical volunteers to help people with little or no access to surgical care in West Africa.
The team, working alongside Ghanaian medics at Holy Family Hospital, performed 135 procedures including hernia repairs, emergency surgery and a life changing stoma reversal on a 11-year-old boy.
Sala, who set up Operation International UK several years ago, said: “It was awe-inspiring and humbling to see what local doctors and nurses managed to do for their patients with so little.
“We taught them about new systems and technologies and they taught us about efficiency, how to improvise, and keep calm and carry on.”
The charity, which has made several trips in Ghana in recent years, is also funding a children’s playground outside the hospital’s paediatric unit.
It will be named in memory of paediatric anaesthetist Craig Mastracci who volunteered with the charity and will be remembered for bringing a smile to people’s faces in his day-to-day work.
The charity will also be donating a CPAP machine which delivers oxygen to the lungs of patients struggling to breath along with an intravenous fluid warmer.