World Orthopaedic Concern UK

Motec Life - UK

Aim:

We are a charitable, non-profit organisation, working to develop Orthopaedic services in West Africa, by providing free education, training and healthcare services to the underprivileged people of the sub-region.

Location:

based at the West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, with volunteers from hospitals around England, Wales, Holland, Canada and Germany making regular visits to hospitals in Ghana (and Nigeria).

TRUSTEES:

President: Mr Paul Ofori-Atta (Orthopaedic Surgeon and Ghana’s representative, WOC-UK)

PA to President: Dr Louisa Draper

Vice President: Mr Simon Derbie – Anaesthetic Nurse

Secretary: Ms Rosemary Doogan. Treasurer: Mr. Raymond Yeboah Ofori. Welfare Officer: Mr. Steve Townsend.

Membership Secretary: Mrs Gladys Ofori-Atta. International Affairs: Dr Kofi Amu Darku.

Patrons:

Professor Lord David Alton, House of Lords, Westminster, LondonDaasebere Professor Oti Boateng, Paramount Chief Koforidua New Juaben State of Ghana

Co-ordinators in Ghana.

Akosombo: Dr John Nkrumah Mills. Medical Director, Volta River Hospital.

Koforidua: Dr/ Ebenezer Akrofi-Mante, Medical Director, St Joseph’s Hospital.

Consultant: Mrs Estelle Appiah, Office of the Attorney General, Accra.

Motec team with Akosombo Doctors-Mills, right of picture, Emmanuel Agbemey, middle

Motec at the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, Accra

Hospitals:

Akosombo VRA Hospital – Orthopaedic Trauma;
Koforidua St Joseph's Hospital – Orthopaedic Trauma; and
Nkawkaw Holy Family Hospital - General Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Orthopaedic Consultation in Ghana.

Projects:

Ghana Working Visits: four visits to Ghana each year, taking volunteer health professionals to improve the provision of orthopaedic surgery and basic health care by providing the following services:

- Education: evening lectures for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals, focussing on orthopaedic and surgical topics

- Skills: volunteer surgeons, nurses and anaesthetists from UK work hard to train local health care professionals in basic surgical skills

- Equipment: including sterilisation equipment, powered instruments, waste disposal equipment

- Health Care delivery

- Provision of medical equipment:

We work hard throughout the year to collect medical equipment, through kind donations and fundraising, and we pay for this to be freighted to Ghana.

- Fundraising in the UK

The aim of these events is threefold: to raise awareness, raise money, and have fun! Recent events have included a Ghanaian Day and a live music evening.

Case Study 1:

Akosombo Volta River Authority Hospital. The Hospital is a government establishment overseen by the Volta River Authority. It has about 70 beds and provides training to resident doctors from two University Teaching Hospitals in Ghana.

The Orthopaedic services consist of one resident Orthopaedic Surgeon, who must look after the entire Volta Region and part of the Eastern Region of Ghana with only very limited resources. The Medical Director and the Hospital Authorities are desperate to improve Orthopaedic Trauma Training and Services in the Hospital through collaboration with Motec.

To this end, an exciting programme of regular lectures and workshops with Motec volunteers and local staff has been started, and is already proving very useful.

Case Study 2:

St Joseph's Hospital: A Catholic Mission Hospital, aiming to provide high quality and affordable healthcare, regardless of ethnic or religious background. Services include Primary Health, General Medicine and Trauma and Orthopaedics.

St Joseph’s is, in fact, one of the few working orthopaedic hospital in Ghana with a huge catchment area covering the whole of the West African Sub-continent, making it even more critical to develop excellent Orthopaedic services in this hospital. Staff are enthusiastic, dedicated and motivated to improve services but resources are scanty.

“We are so much constrained in improving the existing facilities in the theatre, OPD and the Wards since we have limited funding with a great deal of pressure from unpaid bills by some patients, especially in emergency care.” Patients requiring even the most simple of orthopaedic operations may wait months for treatment due to a shortage of skilled manpower, medical materials and the cost of implants.

(Annual Report: St Josephs Hospital 2004)

Support and Recognition:

Our work is linked up with the Tropical Health and Educational Trust (THET) and supported by the International Organisation for Migration (I.O.M.) / Migration for Development in Africa (M.I.D.A.) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).