Sarah’s Story
Sarah, before the operation
Sarah, after the operation
In July 2016 I was on one of my regular visits to the Congo, accompanied on this occasion by my husband, when we were made aware of Sarah, a young severely disfigured girl with a growth on her face.
In a country without either social services or health provisions, she was practically homeless, having been expelled from her father’s house by her step-mother, and was living a hand to mouth existence, the subject of much abuse and harassment. Touched by her plight, I resolved to do whatever I could to help.
First things first, we made arrangements with friends to ensure she had a roof over her head and regular meals.
Next was to establish the source of the growth so we took her into Kinshasa’s best equipped private clinic where she was examined and had a set of full scans. The diagnosis was a non-malignant tumour, but one that would continue to grow until it firstly stopped her eating and finally stopped her breathing – the doctor explained it was treatable but as there are no hospitals or doctors in the Congo to deal with this, it would mean going abroad.
What to do?
This started the next stage of finding out where she could be operated on and of course finding the funding as this was clearly going to be an expensive undertaking and beyond the resources of ACMC alone!
Nevertheless we were determined, chasing funding, including the wonderful curry night at Olton Friary.
To cut a long story short, I pursued various avenues before lighting on the Mercy Ship – which is a floating hospital, fully equipped with state of the art facilities and staffed by volunteer medical staff that delivers medical aid around the world.
Soon after the Mercy Ship put me in contact with Dr Keith Thomson, a retired anaesthesist who turned out to be my saviour!
By sheer coincidence Dr Keith was in contact with a priest in the Congo regarding a young boy called Hughes who had a similar tumour! Well we started to work together – me using my knowledge of the Congo to handle all local arrangements, Dr Keith using his network to arrange for the operation for both to be carried out in Kampala, Uganda where the hospital had the right facilities and more importantly, a surgeon he knows personally who was able to perform the operation.
Now we notched things up a gear, getting passports, sorting out flights, travel, living expenses and hosting arrangements for Kampala, including nurses and post-operation lodging and so on. Meanwhile Dr Keith was also busy sourcing additional funding through his contacts.
At last, on the 27th of August 2017 Sarah and Hughes travelled to Kampala and fortunately all the arrangements worked and it wasn’t long before they were in Hospital. The actual operation was complex each one lasting 10 hrs; and both were successful! After being discharged, Sarah & Hughes spent 2 months in Kampala in post operative care before finally returning to Kinshasa
And now?
The second photo shows Sarah after her operation! Almost unrecognisable from the poor girl who had left a couple of months earlier.
We intend to find her a home where she can live with her Aunt and eventually return to school to secure her future.
As for our collaboration with Dr Keith, we are in discussion to see how we can continue to work together to bring medical aid to some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.