Sisemed joins the NGO Teranga in offering medical technology and aid in Senegal
Sisemed has collaborated with the NGO Associació Intercultural i Solidària Teranga on a humanitarian project in a remote rural area in southern Senegal, where there is a small medical centre and the level of healthcare is virtually non-existent, according to the European scale. There is currently one hospital that serves a population of nearly 50,000 people scattered throughout a territory covering 1000 km2 with very difficult access.
There are also 14 dispensaries distributed throughout the region, with a nurse on duty and a nurse's assistant as primary care, seven "health centres" without a nurse on duty and twenty rural maternity wards with very limited medical equipment.
The team deployed consisted of six professionals in the healthcare field and one of our specialists in medical technology, Borja Estrada. Led by Dr. Teresa Sellés, specialist in general surgery at Centro Médico Teknon and Clínica Sagrada Familia, and Dr. Toño Pando, specialist in general and digestive surgery at Mutua de Terrassa, they performed 48 surgical operations and assisted more than 150 patients.
Furthermore, the healthcare and technical staff also received training over the two weeks that the mission lasted, and material and equipment was given to them from charitable donations made by Hospital General de Catalunya, Fundación TigoMigo and numerous companies.
Sisemed also donated a full case of tools used by its technical team in electro-medicine maintenance activities, which proved quite useful in setting up an improvised surgical theatre, due to the impracticable conditions at the Thionck-essyl Hospital and the limited resources available.