American surgeons land in city for operations

By NICHOLAS ANYUOR

Kisumu County

A team of medical experts from the US have arrived in Kisumu to offer free surgical services.

This is aimed at reducing the increasing surgical backlog in western Kenya.

The surgical operations, which started on Monday, will see patients suffering from severe surgical complications from Nyanza, Rift Valley, and Western provinces helped.

The team of six experts include two gynaecologists, two general surgeons, and two cardiothoracic surgeons. They arrived with equipment, most which are not found in some Government hospitals.

The services are being offered at the New Nyanza General Hospital, where they have been accompanied by a team of four Kenyan surgeons, led by Otieno Obondi, who heads the Department of Surgery at the facility.

Nyanza Director of Medical Services Ojwang’ Lusi said the exercise was under the Millennium City programme.

He said the team arrived last week and screened patients on Sunday.

"After free screening they started carrying out surgeries on Monday and this will go on for a week," he said.

Ojwang’ said the team would also carry out gynaecology services to female patients at the same time.

He said this is ahead of another team of urinologists, which is expected to arrive early next month to offer free treatment to urinal track-related cases. Dr Obondi said the team’s target was 120 patients every week.

But those who have been in the wards waiting for the operations will be given a priority. "They are also going to offer other free medical services. We don’t have enough equipment here," Obondi said.

Nyanza Provincial Hospital is taking care of patients with complicated surgical cases from Nyanza, Western and parts of Rift Valley Province.

"We have patients from all over the region, as far as Kericho. After this the team is going to leave us some expensive equipment. This is a positive start," Obondi further explained.

Lately, cases of backlog at many health facilities have hit the sector, with medical personnel citing lack of equipment and inadequate health workers.