News / Health
Free ops at Mpilo
16 May 2016 at 06:35hrs | Views
MPILO Central Hospital in Bulawayo is today set to start weeklong free cleft palates and cleft lips operations for children who are eight months old and above.
The hospital's public relations officer, Sibusisiwe Faith Ndlovu, said a team of nine foreign surgeons and one Zimbabwean volunteered to offer the free services at the hospital.
"Unfortunately, they have opted at this period to operate only on patients above the age of eight months and will attend to the younger ones upon their return in September," she said. Ndlovu said the patients were screened and registered for operations yesterday ahead of the medical procedures.
"We advertised through hospitals, clinics and social media to have such patients registering to be attended to by these volunteer surgeons. We received an overwhelming response and unfortunately a number of patients were turned away. However, we hope as per their promise, they'll come back in September," she said.
One of the visiting surgeons, Dr Christiaan Schrag, said the registration process was now closed as they already have a very large number of registered and screened patients they will operate on during the five days they will be based at Mpilo Central Hospital.
"We hope to attend to the remaining lot when we return in September. We're a team of 10 surgeons from different parts of the world with only one Zimbabwean.
"Actually, I was born in Zimbabwe too but I'm practising in Canada and decided to join this group as a way of giving back to the country I was born in. Thus we've come here to offer our services for free to those in need," said Dr Schrag. The group carried out similar operations in Harare last week.
The hospital's public relations officer, Sibusisiwe Faith Ndlovu, said a team of nine foreign surgeons and one Zimbabwean volunteered to offer the free services at the hospital.
"Unfortunately, they have opted at this period to operate only on patients above the age of eight months and will attend to the younger ones upon their return in September," she said. Ndlovu said the patients were screened and registered for operations yesterday ahead of the medical procedures.
"We advertised through hospitals, clinics and social media to have such patients registering to be attended to by these volunteer surgeons. We received an overwhelming response and unfortunately a number of patients were turned away. However, we hope as per their promise, they'll come back in September," she said.
One of the visiting surgeons, Dr Christiaan Schrag, said the registration process was now closed as they already have a very large number of registered and screened patients they will operate on during the five days they will be based at Mpilo Central Hospital.
"We hope to attend to the remaining lot when we return in September. We're a team of 10 surgeons from different parts of the world with only one Zimbabwean.
"Actually, I was born in Zimbabwe too but I'm practising in Canada and decided to join this group as a way of giving back to the country I was born in. Thus we've come here to offer our services for free to those in need," said Dr Schrag. The group carried out similar operations in Harare last week.
Source - chronicle
