Hospitals in Ghana may see a reduction in non-functional surgical instruments as 30 Ghanaians are undergoing training in surgical instrument repair.

The 2-week course meant to provide the hospitals with skilled technicians who can repair and maintain surgical instruments was provided by Safe Surgery Initiative.

It is estimated 143 million additional surgical procedures are needed in low and middle-income countries to save lives and prevent disability.

Safe Surgery Initiative is a nonprofit organization that provides surgical instrument refurbishment, capacity building and education to low and middle-income countries.

Executive Director of Safe Surgery Initiative, Keith Miles says the technicians will benefit from continuous online training to make them fully certified.

“This is the first step in our training programme. After that, they go through more online training. We also do augmented online training.

“Once they complete the certification process, they’ll get a certificate and they’ll be qualified to write an exam to qualify them for surgical instrument repair,” he explained.

The participants were drawn from Ashanti, Bono, Northern and Greater Accra regions.

The training, the third in West Africa, was sponsored by Smile Train with support from Ghana Cleft Foundation and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

President of the West African College of Surgeons and President of Ghana Cleft Foundation, Prof. Peter Donkor believes this comes as a relief to both patients and surgeons.

“Surgeons will be happy and patients should expect that operation time will be shorter. The instrument will no longer be blunt. We’ll no longer wait for what isn’t available.

“Quality of care is bound to improve,” he added.

He said the programme will be expanded to accommodate technicians from other regions.

CEO Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Dr Oheneba Owusu-Danso was optimistic the training will significantly lessen the financial burden caused by the equipment breakdown.

Safe Surgery Initiative donated surgical tools worth 50,000 US dollars to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.