I am joining a international team for the 2nd time to travel to Ghana, Africa to be part of the surgical team aiming to perform 300 hernia operations in 2weeks. A hernia may be seen more as an inconvenience in the UK which is relatively quickly repaired by surgery provided by our NHS . People living in a 3rd world country are not so lucky. Living with a hernia in these countries lead to people having lives that consist of pain, inability to work leading to not being able to provide for themselves or families which can causes homelessness starvation and in many cases a very painful death. Many young men in Ghana are also deprived the basic right of being able to be independent due to restrictions in being able to perform the extremely hard and intensive manual work which most Ghanaian men must do to provide . This inability to work ostracises these men socially, leading to not being able to marry have a family leading into a life of despair, physical and emotional pain and eventually death. Our Goal is to be able to provide this life saving operation that can literally be done within an hour under local anaesthetic. The area of Ghana we are going to is called carpenter which is in the process of trying to become a self sustaining independent area under the leadership of David Mensah and the organisation GRID Please check the website and see some of its wonderful projects (https://grid-nea.org/about/directors-welcome/). This organisation is all about making Ghana's people independent, However, to do this they must be fit and healthy. This is where we come in and help provide surgical support repairing as many peoples hernias as we can in two weeks until the completion of Carpenters new Hospital complex which will then take over the care of its people.
I feel privileged being able to provide my skills to support these amazing and inspirational people. I also feel proud to be part of an international team aiming to help others above themselves