Global paediatric surgery – providing coaching and clinical care to the paediatric surgical department in The Gambia

Day to day most of us will feel overworked, stretched, and working in teams that need more people, more expertise, more time. In the UK we have roughly 250 paediatric surgeons serving 14 million children (18 per million). In The Gambia they have one, serving 1.2 million children (0.8 per million).

King’s Global Health Partners have a long term link with Gambia’s health system, and deliberately have been seeking to strengthen and develop the paediatric surgical service at Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital as Anu Paul (Evelina) the partnership lead collaborates alongside Cherno Jallow (Gambia).

Emma (my wife) and I were invited to join the department and take over the day to day running of the paediatric surgical service. I was able to guide Alagie Baldeh, their fellow, through neonatal laparotomies and dusted off a bedside ultrasound machine to drain abdominal cysts and liver abcesses. Emma was able to lead sessions for the whole department of surgery on communication styles and trust building behaviour. We were able to strengthen the army of loyal local care providers who are doing amazing work in challenging circumstances, and know we will be back in the future to continue to support the service.

Ben Martin

Birmingham