Senegal
Fann Hospital, Dakar, Senegal
BP 3528, DAKAR, SENEGAL
Professor Mouhamadou N'Diaye
Tel: +221 639 9256 • Fax: +221 823 5896
For over ten years, La Chaine de l'Espoir (CdE) has been actively involved in medical programs in Senegal to save cardiac children patients through medical and surgical programs that were systematically backed up by training actions. Today, on request from local partners (Senegal authorities, doctors and surgeons), La Chaine de l'Espoir and its US-based foundation, Surgeons of Hope Foundation, Inc. (SoH) have decided to go one step further and implement a lasting sustainable local project: the completion and enhancement of the Cardiology Center that the Senegal government authorities have undertaken to implement in Dakar, Fann Hospital. CdE, supported by SoH, is fully prepared to bring lasting medical, surgical and initially managerial support to the Center and contribute its expertise in hospital project development and implementation.
Why such a Center?
Senegal today
Located on the western edge of the African continent, Senegal stretches over 196,000km2 mainly in the Sahel region. The country hosts 10 million inhabitants, two-thirds of them being under the age of 25; over half the population live in the cities (2.5 million people in Dakar). It is a "poor” country (with a per capita $540 GNP). Life expectancy is only 50 years and infant mortality reaches 18%.
Heart diseases have a very high impact and are most invalidating for such a young population. 10 children out of 1,000 are directly at risk from:
Such pathologies, if untreated, are highly invalidating and most of the time fatal in the medium term. The only effective treatment currently available is based on surgery and cardiac catheterism.
An Answer to Meet Needs
Transferring over to Europe for surgery and medical care the children who cannot be treated locally is of course useful and saves lives. Sending over surgical and training medical missions to operate on a number of children and train local staff so they can take over and operate a greater number of children is one step ahead. Both types of programs have been successfully implemented by CdE-SoH. For the kids concerned, this is invaluable. But either approach or both combined, cannot possibly meet the quantitative needs of the country. A wider-scale approach is a must as waiting lists get longer every day and there will be more children who are going to die than children saved.
So, there is in fact only one possible answer: setting up a permanent medical and surgical Center in the country to take broader care of its young patients. This was how and why Senegal health authorities and government have undertaken to establish a specialized cardiology Center in Dakar. This is why SoH foundation have undertaken to help and support the project.
CdE - SoH in Senegal: Over the past ten Years
SoH has been working in Senegal for over ten years through its surgery in France and European program. As of 1999, it stepped up its actions through the organizing theoretical and on-the-job training surgical medical missions at the Le Dantec hospital in Dakar.
Over the ten year period, the financial contribution totaling over $700,000 meant that:
…and Now
This contribution and assistance had to be sustained and sustainable: CdE-SoH were obviously prepared to back-up the initiative taken by the authorities of Senegal and give it full support.
First, CdE-SoH will continue and extend the medical supplies and equipment contribution program. Second, the local medical and surgical staff-training program will be expanded. Both programs have been formalized through an official agreement with the government authorities of Senegal and should lead to the opening of the Cardiology Center in early 2004.
The Philosophy
SoH is not merely engaged in building or renovating hospital buildings, contributing fittings, fixtures and medical equipment while organizing a few medical missions to get them going. The real concept and philosophy of all its hospital projects, including this one, is to actually transfer medical expertise and technology as well as hospital managerial skills and well thought out management objectives so that projects are effective in their impact on the population, sustainable in the long term, and cost-effective in their subsequent developments.
Consequently, the legal and administrative framework in which the Center will operate is a key issue. The Center must benefit from special dispensations for autonomous management, capacity to receive financial contributions, grants and gifts to achieve financial balance.
Action by CdE-SoH in the this project fully fits the stated purpose: taking care of disadvantaged children and train local staff. The idea is certainly not to engage in "hospital management” as such, but establishing the hospital and helping it start up is indispensable to give a valuable tool and well-thought out Center to those who need it most.
The Dakar Cardiology Center, as other centres before, shall be an additional human link in-keeping with the philosophy of La Chaine de l'Espoir, best summarized as: "Curing and training, training to cure”.
The Main Assets of the Dakar Cardiology Center
A Few Figures
The needs of Senegal
Investment by the state of Senegal
First phase
Second phase: 2005
Financial Commitment of La Chaine de l'Espoir (CdE-SoH)
2004 expected budget for surgical care and training
Fann Hospital, Dakar, SenegalBP 3528, DAKAR, SENEGAL
Professor Mouhamadou N'Diaye
Tel: +221 639 9256 • Fax: +221 823 5896
For over ten years, La Chaine de l'Espoir (CdE) has been actively involved in medical programs in Senegal to save cardiac children patients through medical and surgical programs that were systematically backed up by training actions. Today, on request from local partners (Senegal authorities, doctors and surgeons), La Chaine de l'Espoir and its US-based foundation, Surgeons of Hope Foundation, Inc. (SoH) have decided to go one step further and implement a lasting sustainable local project: the completion and enhancement of the Cardiology Center that the Senegal government authorities have undertaken to implement in Dakar, Fann Hospital. CdE, supported by SoH, is fully prepared to bring lasting medical, surgical and initially managerial support to the Center and contribute its expertise in hospital project development and implementation.
Why such a Center?
Senegal today
Located on the western edge of the African continent, Senegal stretches over 196,000km2 mainly in the Sahel region. The country hosts 10 million inhabitants, two-thirds of them being under the age of 25; over half the population live in the cities (2.5 million people in Dakar). It is a "poor” country (with a per capita $540 GNP). Life expectancy is only 50 years and infant mortality reaches 18%.
Heart diseases have a very high impact and are most invalidating for such a young population. 10 children out of 1,000 are directly at risk from:
- Congenital cardiopathies (20%),
- Rheumatic fever induced heart conditions (80%)
Such pathologies, if untreated, are highly invalidating and most of the time fatal in the medium term. The only effective treatment currently available is based on surgery and cardiac catheterism.
An Answer to Meet Needs
Transferring over to Europe for surgery and medical care the children who cannot be treated locally is of course useful and saves lives. Sending over surgical and training medical missions to operate on a number of children and train local staff so they can take over and operate a greater number of children is one step ahead. Both types of programs have been successfully implemented by CdE-SoH. For the kids concerned, this is invaluable. But either approach or both combined, cannot possibly meet the quantitative needs of the country. A wider-scale approach is a must as waiting lists get longer every day and there will be more children who are going to die than children saved.
So, there is in fact only one possible answer: setting up a permanent medical and surgical Center in the country to take broader care of its young patients. This was how and why Senegal health authorities and government have undertaken to establish a specialized cardiology Center in Dakar. This is why SoH foundation have undertaken to help and support the project.CdE - SoH in Senegal: Over the past ten Years
SoH has been working in Senegal for over ten years through its surgery in France and European program. As of 1999, it stepped up its actions through the organizing theoretical and on-the-job training surgical medical missions at the Le Dantec hospital in Dakar.
Over the ten year period, the financial contribution totaling over $700,000 meant that:
- 150 children received life-saving treatment or surgery (60% heart pathologies)
- $300,000 medical supplies and equipments were donated,
- local medical and surgical staff were offered training, both locally and in France, through 6 training courses organized for doctors, surgeons and medical staff.
…and Now
This contribution and assistance had to be sustained and sustainable: CdE-SoH were obviously prepared to back-up the initiative taken by the authorities of Senegal and give it full support.
First, CdE-SoH will continue and extend the medical supplies and equipment contribution program. Second, the local medical and surgical staff-training program will be expanded. Both programs have been formalized through an official agreement with the government authorities of Senegal and should lead to the opening of the Cardiology Center in early 2004.
The Philosophy
SoH is not merely engaged in building or renovating hospital buildings, contributing fittings, fixtures and medical equipment while organizing a few medical missions to get them going. The real concept and philosophy of all its hospital projects, including this one, is to actually transfer medical expertise and technology as well as hospital managerial skills and well thought out management objectives so that projects are effective in their impact on the population, sustainable in the long term, and cost-effective in their subsequent developments.
Consequently, the legal and administrative framework in which the Center will operate is a key issue. The Center must benefit from special dispensations for autonomous management, capacity to receive financial contributions, grants and gifts to achieve financial balance.
Action by CdE-SoH in the this project fully fits the stated purpose: taking care of disadvantaged children and train local staff. The idea is certainly not to engage in "hospital management” as such, but establishing the hospital and helping it start up is indispensable to give a valuable tool and well-thought out Center to those who need it most.
The Dakar Cardiology Center, as other centres before, shall be an additional human link in-keeping with the philosophy of La Chaine de l'Espoir, best summarized as: "Curing and training, training to cure”.
The Main Assets of the Dakar Cardiology Center- A well tailored response to vast and pressing needs,
- An initiative taken by Senegalese doctors and surgeons themselves with full support from the authorities of their country,
- A long-term medical strategy with staff training and consequent upgrading of surgical capacity of the country and the sub-area.
* The treatment of disadvantaged children being paid by the International Medical Foundation of the Senegal. - A modular high-level international standard technical platform so that the Center may become a reference Center for the whole of West Africa.
A Few Figures
The needs of Senegal
- 100,000 children suffering from cardiovascular pathologies
- 20,000 requiring urgent surgical treatment
Investment by the state of Senegal
- Land belonging to the state
- Financial investment: $590,000 (building, amenities)
First phase
- Surgical unit: 2 operating rooms, 10 recovery beds, 25 in-patients beds, 4 outpatients rooms, 1 pharmacy, 1 laboratory, 1 blood bank
- Building: 1,200m˛ on two floors
- Activity: 3,000 outpatient visits per year; 300 surgeries per year
- Opening of the Center: 2004
Second phase: 2005
- Extension of the building: 600m˛
- A training unit
- An interventional cardiology unit
- A research unit
Financial Commitment of La Chaine de l'Espoir (CdE-SoH)
- Investment budget for 2007
- Medical & Hospital equipment: $45,000
- Ten day validation medical mission: $48,200 (6-member team, consumables for 20 surgeries)
- Pre-opening total budget: $93,200
2004 expected budget for surgical care and training
- Care payment for 100 disadvantaged children ($2,300 per child) $230,000
- Training support : $16,684
- Enhancement of paramedicall staff: $35,482
- 2007 Global Direct Care and Training Budget: $282,166
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Copyright © 2013. Surgeons of Hope.
www.surgeonsofhope.org
Copyright © 2013. Surgeons of Hope.