The healthcare shipment to Sanyang (Gambia) of the SOM Foundation (Sanitaries Open to the World), sponsored by Juaneda Hospitales and composed mainly of professionals from this private hospital complex, has already returned, after a week (from 28 October to 5 November) treating multiple pathologies and surgical cases in that population.
Pep Ribas, Director of Nursing at the Juaneda Miramar Hospital, is one of the promoters of this initiative. Having recently arrived from this trip, the emotions and memories are stronger than the tiredness of seven days dedicated to helping the inhabitants of that impoverished area of Africa. So many emotions that we are already thinking about the return, in October 2023.
Turning to the clinical results, he underlines that “the fact that a anesthetist, Dr. Pablo Partidait gave us the certainty of maximum attention and monitoring of surgical patients and of having faced operations that could not have been done with local anesthesia alone, with spinal, regional plexus and various general anesthesia”.
The team of cooperators faced a series of cases already planned: «I elimination of keloids [grandes y elevadas cicatrices causadas por el crecimiento excesivo del tejido tras superarse lesiones de la piel] and benign tumors but very stigmatizing caused by neurofibromatosis, which is an endemic disease in that area.
“This year we were also able to treat -continues Pep Ribas- the retractable scars on the hands and feet, which were operated on by Dr. Antonio Ruiz, plastic and reconstructive surgeon de Juaneda Hospitales, incorporated into the expedition this year. We were able to have amputations, such as the one of an aberrant toe on a foot that conditioned the life of a girl. It was a congenital malformation, to which Dr. Jaume Julia [cirujano vascular de Juaneda Hospitales y otro de los líderes de estas expediciones]. The girl had suffered a tremendous stigma: she covered her foot to walk because of the shame caused by her big toe, which we were able to amputate and reconstruct. It was the case that she touched us all the most ».
When working in areas with sanitation shortages, as is the case in this part of the Gambia, some cases leave a bittersweet feeling, like that of a woman in her early 40s who could not be guaranteed a long-term prognosis – long-term survival , but offers a better quality of life, the time advanced cancer will still leave you: “A woman with advanced breast cancer came to us, with an ulcerated, infected breast, in excruciating pain, who begged us to do a mastectomy. We discussed it a lot, because it was a complex intervention, but we came to the conclusion that we had to do it to improve the quality of life of that desperate man.
«In this expedition -adds Pep Ribas- we have had bittersweet satisfactions, such as those of this case, in which doctors Ruiz and Julià intervened, improving their pain, despite knowing that their prognosis was not good, but we also made two resections of fibroadenomas, early detected tumors that we removed for prevention.
Another addition to this shipment was the Adela Silvestre, specialist wound care nursewith advice from Juaneda Hospitales, prestigious professional in this field, trainer of other nurses in these very complex and specific types of care, author of the very popular Instagram profile Dearheridas.
«Adela has made a magnificent tandem with María José Bennássar, also nurse for priests. They have been able to heal injuries, some as complicated as the case of a patient with filiariasis and elephantiasic leg, with wounds all over the extremity… and that was just the first day,” recalls Pep Ribas.
And he adds: «But then they continued with the treatment of post-operated patients and, most importantly, they dedicated themselves to the training of the two local nurses, who live there and who will ensure continuity of care. You have to think that they are excellent professionals, they train as best they can, but because they are where they are, they lack the means to keep up to date.
«They saw the techniques done, they did them, they recorded them on video, they took notes and we also left all the material we could so that these nurses can continue their treatment and lack nothing. They could be good professionals or better than us, if they had the right means”, concludes Pep Ribas.
These professionals, in their vacation They learned many unexpected things, “like the last day, which a man came to us with an eye in very bad shape, the result of an attack by a spitting cobra, which we did not know were very frequent. Or that of a worker electrocuted, who wore rubber boots, but full of holes…».
