November 2019
This year’s Fellowship Award Winner Miss Lulu Ritchie travelled to Tanzania with the donated KARL STORZ equipment. She set it up there and together with Prof. David Howard (a Founding Member of AGA-ENT who has been teaching in Moshi, Tanzania, for years and greatly facilitated AGA-ENT’s efforts in Tanzania) she taught the local surgeons using the new set of oesophagoscopes and equipment for foreign body removal, in addition to the equipment brought to the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) in August 2018. The KCMC is an approximately 400-bedded hospital with an estimated catchment population of 15 million people. Any global health interventions here therefore make a palpable impact on health equality in Tanzania. In this area foreign body ingestion requiring surgical removal is very common and the team did not have the appropriate equipment to deal with this before. The visit in August 2018 and in November 2019 and the donation of the equipment greatly facilitated the training of the local surgical team and the overall surgical care in this area.
Miss Ritchie was the third AGA-ENT KARL STORZ fellowship winner and brought new equipment which was kindly donated by KARL STORZ. She was joined by Mr. Andrew Lau, the 2018 AGA-ENT – KARL STORZ fellowship winner, who has driven forward his work there.
November 2018
Mr. Andrew Lau (NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in ENT, Mersey sector, HEE North West; Final year PhD student in Surgery & Oncology, University of Liverpool) was awarded one of the two inaugural AGA-ENT – KARL STORZ Fellowships. Together with Prof. David Howard he travelled to Moshi, Tanzania, in November 2018, and provided further training to the local ENT team at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), using the previously donated equipment and further equipment. The provision of good quality oesophagoscopy equipment by the company KARL STORZ, including sturdy, appropriate-sized forceps has made a significant difference to foreign body removal at KCMC, as seen in the below images. Further training has been provided, ensuring the sustainability of the donation.
Prof Howard inspecting out-of-order anaesthetic equipment.
Another successful foreign body retrieval: Now in <1 minute thanks to new equipment
August 2018
In August 2018 surgical training and the provision of surgical care in Moshi, Tanzania, was greatly enhanced through a donation of ENT equipment. A new set of oesophagoscopes and equipment for foreign body removal was brought to the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) by Mr. Matt Lechner and Prof. David Howard. The KCMC is an approximately 400-bedded hospital with an estimated catchment population of 15 million people. Any global health interventions here therefore make a palpable impact on health equality in Tanzania. The ENT unit comprises three consultants, one staff registrar, half a dozen residents and some rotating interns. There has been support from Professors David Howard, Gayle Woodson and Tom Robbins who visit a few times a year, and who have been doing so for many years. The local ENT consultants are towards the early part of their consultant careers, and are among only fifteen in the entire country. They are now beginning to develop the unit’s ability to deliver services such as audiology and speech and language therapy.
In this area foreign body ingestion requiring surgical removal is very common and the team did not have the appropriate equipment to deal with this before. The visit in August and the donation of the equipment greatly facilitated the training of the local surgical team and the overall surgical care in this area.
Donation of the equipment to the local ENT team and training at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Moshi, Tanzania