February began with a Visit from two members of the Swiss Rotary Club Nyon-a-Côte, Sebastien Bottorn who is an orthodontist, and Olivier Bachelard who is a gynecologist/obstetrician. Their trip visiting the Swiss-Sierra Leone Development Foundation was short but effective.

We only had a few days to tour the various facilities throughout the hospital with our guest, and while they were confound with the present state of some of the wards and condition of machines, they proposed the funding of a full remodel of the operating theatre and a new capable ECG machine. A suitcase or drugs was also given the Patrick and Unisa Head of Pharmacy Department, which is always a huge help, and they are always thankful for.

Their main mission this trip was to understand the state of the hospital as well as realize the practicality of implementing sustainable dentistry, and a revolving gynecologist progamme at the Magbenteh Community Hospital in Makeni. These concepts should be ideal and work within the current reality of Sierra Leone.

We discussed with Gynecologist and obstetrician Olivier Bachelard about future collaborations regarding Cesarean Sections and cervical cancer surgeries. C-Sections are very expensive for locals to pay, but unfortunately the hospital doesn’t have funding to operate these surgeries for free. We introduced a c-section sponsorship initiative. The concept would pilot an outreach program to expecting mothers, well before birth. Gynecologist abroad would then have a chance to sponsor these mothers, paying not only for their surgery but any prenatal medication needed as well.

A similar program was discussed regarding cervical cancer, while we don’t have capable surgeons in Sierra Leone to complete these surgeries a concept was introduced to bring in surgeons once or twice a year to operate on specific cases.

We also spoke with Sebastian, an orthodontist in Switzerland about the reality of having a dentist here at Magbenteh Community Hospital. The issue with this concept is the lack of long-term commitment from an international source to stay in Sierra Leone. Another alternative we discussed is to speak with dentistry schools in Switzerland and propose a revolving dentistry programme. This is also an issue because there are no dentistry schools in Sierra Leone for the students to collaborate with.

This trip was great we produced two sold resolutions, which will fortify the stability and sustainability here at Magbenteh Community Hospital. Thank you very much.!