Surgical operations

Located seven hours by car from Dhaka in the district of Nilphamari, is a leprosy hospital led by Doctor Jean-François Negrini. This hospital is one of only two medical buildings situated in this very poor area of Bangladesh.
Given the extremely precarious conditions of the hospital, working with no anaesthetist, no anaesthetist's equipment and a lack of experienced surgeons, a large number of children suffering from severe deformities cannot be treated and are thus condemned.

The mission of hope

This is why Children Action decided to organise one to two surgical missions per year, with two surgeons and an anaesthetist. The patient selection is done by the health department of the district as well as Dr Negrini.Each medical file is then sent by e-mail to the European experts to enable them to discuss every case in advance and to bring the necessary supplies with them.

Treated in March 2007 during the surgical mission in Bangladesh led by Prof. C. Coultre, Dr G. De Coulon and Dr A. Polet, these three brothers and sister used to walk with huge difficulty. 4 months after having surgery, they walk normally.

Cost

An 8-day surgical mission to perform operations on approx. 27 children, with three doctors including travel and materials costs approx. CHF 7 000(4 500 €). Since 2004, 7 missions have been organised allowing to perform surgery on 192 children.
The Leprosy Mission bears the medical and hospital costs for the children who are operated due to the surgical missions of Children Action.

Team

Project leader: Prof. Claude le Coultre
Project leader in Bangladesh : Dr Jean-François Negrini