By Emily Eldred | Project Officer
Every year we aim to treat around 50 complex cases of facial disfigurement in Ethiopia. Throughout the year, our outreach team pro-actively engages with rural communities to find individuals with severe facial deformities. Our patients come from far and wide across Ethiopia in often difficult to reach areas.
The conditions we saw this year ranged from tongue-tie, Noma to huge Ameloblastomas. Thanks to your help we have treated over 40 patients with complex facial disfigurements in Ethiopia this year.
The Pre-op Stage
Around 60 potential patients arrived in February to our pre-op assessment centre in Addis Ababa. During this stage of the mission our patients received initial assessments from a team of doctors, nurses and nutritionists to assess suitability for surgery. Full medical histories, various tests, scans and oral hygiene were undertaken.
Quite often our patients come to us malnourished and this year was no different. One of the main aims of the 2018 complex mission was to improve the nutritional aspect of the mission to help build up the patient’s strength for surgery. We had help from two UK registered Dietitians who carefully monitored our patients diet and provided high calorie drinks to build up their strength. One patient gained 7Kg in just 10 days, a huge success for our team.
The Operative Stage
After an initial two weeks of assessments the main team arrived in Addis Ababa and an intense two-week operative stage took place. A team of surgeons, doctors, nurses and anaesthetists from the Ethiopia, France, Hong Kong, USA and the UK operated on 4 patients a day. In total we were able to operate on over 40 patients and refer on a further 10 for further investigations. The surgeries were all a huge success with some amazing results.
The Post-op Stage
Post-surgery, patients returned to Cheshire where they received continued support from nurses and doctors before they are discharged. This stage of our mission is still ongoing. The care at Cheshire is to ensure patients stay infection free and recover properly from their surgery before returning home. But it’s also an opportunity for our patients to relax and play.
The change in the patients post-surgery was remarkable and they continue to improve every day.
Stay tuned for updates on our patients!
All the best,
The Project Harar Team
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