(African proverb)
“... What is your field? " Abdelkadre asks me, "I am a cardiologist, in particular an electrophysiologist, the cardiologist who deals with arrhythmias and places pacemakers and defibrillators to patients who need them ..." I answer with my slightly rusty French. His big eyes light up… dozens of emails, phone calls and meetings have followed since then.
Abdelkadre is an executive from the Tchad Ministry of Health, one of the poorest countries in Central Africa. He is in Switzerland, like me, to attend a Global and International Health course at the University of Geneva. An international three-year course, to be carried out part time and remotely, attended by many doctors but also administrative managers from different European and African nations.
He explains to me tha in Tchad there are only 6 cardiologists for a population of over 11 million inhabitants and none of them have specific skills in interventional cardiology, even less in electrophysiology.
Those who need a pacemaker in Tchad, to seek treatment, are forced to travel to distant countries, such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, South Africa, but this has a cost that only very few people in the very poor country can afford.
More than two years have passed since our first meeting, and thanks to Abdelkadre I have established contacts with several hospitals in the country, and with the University of Ndjamena, the capital of Tchad. Together with other colleagues, led by the voluntary association DonK Humanitarian Medicine, we have created the "African PACE Project", a project in collaboration with the Reinassance Hospital of Ndjamena, the Faculty of Medicine of Tchad and the patronage, between the others, from the University of Geneva.
Trieste (Italy), April 2020 - Dr. Stefano Bardari - President of DonK Humanitarian Medicine ODV
Our project is divided into a phase of on-site activity in Africa and a phase of telemedicine / consulting / distance learning in remote from Europe.
On-site activities in Africa
Three / four annual missions of medical-nursing team, electrostimulation experts, at the Reinassance Hospital of the capital NDjamena. The hospital (public, privately managed) does not have personnel trained to perform pacemaker implants but has the necessary equipment and an operating room to perform the operations.
The missions will last from three to seven days, and will be aimed at implanting pacemakers on local patients, who otherwise would have no other option to access these therapies. At the same time, the team will take care of training the local nursing and medical staff, through the activity in the room and with theoretical lessons in small groups.
The training of local staff is fundamental for the sustainability of the project.
Remote activities
Between one mission and the next one, volunteer doctors and nurses will be engaged in telemedicine consultations and continuous distance training for African health personnel.
Tchad is only the first country from which the African PACE Project will start, but we are confident of exporting the project to other African countries as well. In this sense, we have already made advanced contacts with some African Cardiology Societies and with hospital and university facilities in the Congo, Burkina Faso and Southern Africa.
You can go on-site as a medical volunteer or nurse on our missions
Consultancy: you can make yourself available for telemedicine consultancy and internet teaching for the training of local teams
Donations: you can help us by making a donation to support the project
Sanitary material: you can donate sanitary material useful for our missions
DonK Humanitarian Medicine Volunteer
Organization for Social and Health Care
Via Besenghi 16, 34131, Trieste, Italy
+39 349 2904431
info@africanpaceproject.org