Trip Reports
February 2018 Trip Report
Many factors in our February 2018 mission trip combined to make this simply the best ever!
It’s been more than ten years since we first conceived of the idea of building a Maternity Ward at Holy Spirit Hospital; it was absolutely surreal not only to walk through this beautiful dream now realized, but also to actually work there, delivering babies and performing surgeries in this Ward. What a proud moment for OWWH! According to Dr. Turay and Sister Norah, this Maternity Ward is considered one of the finest and most state of the art in the country. We will now be focusing our attentions on hiring a fulltime obstetrician-gynecologist for the Ward while simultaneously concentrating our efforts to reach out to the community at large to increase the utilization of our unit.
This trip featured a wonderful multidisciplinary group of individuals. Each person made their own valuable contribution to our long term effort while also functioning harmoniously as a cohesive team. Everyone basically had a ball working together – the positive energy was contagious!
Two nurses from Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank, NJ, Pamela Rossano (maternity) and Jenifer Daily (neonatal nursery) brought their many (many!) years of experience and expertise with them to Sierra Leone. Besides being there to help usher in new life, Pam and Jen carried out extensive training and education in neonatal resuscitation and care of the newborn as well as the proper handling of most obstetric emergencies. They cultivated an effective exchange of ideas and methods with the midwives and nurses in our Ward as well as the students at the Midwifery School of Makeni.
On the gynecologic front, Brandy Van Leer (OR scrub tech), Dr. Deborah Shuster (pathology), Dr. Daran Haber (anesthesiology), and Dr. Nina Seigelstein (ob-gyn) as well as the fantastic Holy Spirit Hospital OR staff all combined their talents and energies to create a seamless team which was able to perform 14 life altering gyn surgeries in only three and a half days! We were able to take all of the original OR equipment that we had provided along with the myriad of supplies generously donated by Riverview Medical Center and create an OR complete with everything we could need or desire. Miraculously all of our surgeries in Sierra Leone went so smoothly it was as if we were operating here in the US! From repairing debilitating pelvic organ prolapses to removing large pelvic-abdominal masses, we were able to positively change the lives of all of the women we treated.
We were also fortunate to have Jamie Aaronson (media and marketing) with us. She was able to uniquely document all that we accomplished on our trip, while also conducting detailed interviews with both the patients and staff of HSH.
With this trip our long and productive partnership with our friends at Holy Spirit Hospital continues to flourish and strengthen. We are so thrilled with what we have accomplished and are so excited to continue forward with our work!
January 2014 Trip Report
Our trip to Holy Spirit Hospital in Makeni in January 2014 was both productive and unique– not only did we continue to provide the gynecologic surgery for women in the area in desperate need of our services, but we also began the critical planning stages of the almost completed Maternity Ward.
Many developmental changes were evident in Sierra Leone this trip, all contributing to positive changes in the quality of life for many Sierra Leoneans. Roads have been constructed and paved. Electric lines and solar energy help to bring continuous sources of electricity to Makeni. Internet access and WiFi are widely available. A railroad has been built and is being utilized for the mining industry. All of these infrastructure developments will help us as we enter the next phase of our Maternity Ward project, creating a well- equipped, functional obstetric unit.
This trip featured a streamlined team of three, each member uniquely focused on achieving their preconceived goal. Dr. Tanaz Ferzandi, urogynecologist at Tufts University Medical Center joined Dr. Nina Seigelstein and Danish midwife Inger Nielsen on this latest OWWH mission. While the northeastern US suffered blizzards and record low temperatures, we braved hot and humid conditions in Sierra Leone to change the lives of 15 Sierra Leonean women with pelvic masses, gynecologic malignancies, and pelvic prolapse. All of the surgical supplies for the trip (150 pounds worth) were once again donated completely by Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, NJ.
Dr. Ferzandi’s surgical skills and intellect were both great additions to this 2014 trip. She delved into the operational workings of Holy Spirit with a keen critical eye as she explored the feasibility of creating a global elective for Tufts medical students at Holy Spirit Hospital.
Inger Nielsen served as both scribe and photojournalist as she recorded all aspects of our trip, interviewing the patients to get a real sense of their lives and the struggles they face, and writing a daily blog. Inger continued to cement our partnership with Francess Fornah and the Midwifery School of Makeni while also exploring the possibility of creating a relationship with the Danish Midwifery School.
As the Maternity Ward is projected to be completed by March 2014, we met with Dr. Patrick Turay of Holy Spirit to work out the logistics involved in supplying, equipping, and staffing the Maternity Ward.
Much work remains to be done but we are so encouraged by all of the positive movement we have seen firsthand on this latest trip. We are up to the challenge of continuing our goal- to bring high quality self-sustaining obstetrical and gynecologic services to the women of Sierra Leone so that women need not suffer or die helplessly due to a lack of available access to healthcare.
January 2012 Trip Report
We have just returned from our January 2012 trip to Holy Spirit Hospital in Makeni and One World Women’s Health would like to THANK YOU for all of your support, kind wishes, and generous donations which helped make this latest mission an overwhelming success. This trip we had a superb team, each member making a significant contribution towards reaching our goal to improve the health and well- being of the women of Sierra Leone.
The gyn surgical team of Dr. Michael Karoly, Dr. Nina Seigelstein, and Danielle Yoos, scrub technician, all from Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey braved the difficult working conditions together and performed 22 life altering major gynecologic surgeries from repairing severe uterine prolapse and pelvic relaxation, performing perineal reconstruction, to removing fibroid tumors and other pelvic masses. All of the surgical supplies used for these operations were generously donated by Riverview Medical Center and were transported by our team into Sierra Leone. We also fit women not desiring prolapse or incontinence surgery with some of the 95 pessaries donated from Cooper Surgical, as well as teaching the Holy Spirit staff how to do this on their own.
Inger Nielsen, Danish midwife from Wellesley, MA helped to build a relationship between OWWH and the nearby Midwifery School of Makeni, which will be graduating its first class of 69 Midwives this February. This Midwifery School will play a large role in staffing our Maternity Ward with well- educated midwives. Inger gave a well- received lecture to the students, presented them and taught them how to utilize the 35 Bakri Postpartum Hemorrhage Balloons donated by Cook Medical, and visited a rural Community Health Post where pre and postnatal care and teaching were administered to a group of enthusiastic village women.
Janine Karoly of New Jersey served as our photojournalist, documenting the positive impact of our work on the lives of our patients, interviewing some of the special people in Sierra Leone involved with our project, and providing her own perceptive insights via her blog which was featured on Patch.com.
We plan to break ground on the construction of the first phase of the OWWH Maternity Ward at Holy Spirit Hospital sometime this spring. With the building of the Maternity Ward, the addition of newly educated midwives, the community outreach, and the passionate commitment of Dr. Patrick Turay of Holy Spirit Hospital and Tom Johnson of Africa Surgery, Inc., our dream to improve the healthcare of Sierra Leonean women is becoming a reality.