AFTER a personal tragedy, losing triplet daughters, former Miss Scotland Nicola Wood and husband Garreth launched an international children’s charity to save other families from similar trauma.
Kids Operating Room now builds surgical facilities in developing countries across the world and has saved tens of thousands of young lives, as well as training medics where they are desperately needed.
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Scottish Sun reporter STUART PATTERSON and photographer ANDY BARR visited the southern African country of Zambia with Nicola, to see how the organisation is changing lives for patients, parents and doctors.
Today, in day three of our series, they meet medics who operated on a four-day-old baby who would likely have died if it hadn’t been for the charity.
THE saving of a tiny days-old baby whose life hung in the balance is testament to just how vital a new kids operating theatre has become.
Delivered at eight months, weighing just four pounds, the tot had a series of problems, including heart disease, and couldn’t eat or breathe.
Until fairly recently this would have been a death sentence in Zambia and it’s likely she would have passed away before she got anywhere near an operating theatre.
And even if she did, medics wouldn’t have had the tools to work on someone so small.
Even if she made it over all those hurdles she could have then been killed by the cold. Nurses would have had to wrap her in plastic and cotton wool to protect her from hypothermia — another issue for the hard-pushed operating team to deal with.
But now she’s gone under the knife surrounded by surgeons, nurses and state-of-the-art machinery — thanks to Kids Operating Room, the team has all they need to keep her alive.
Dr Seith Kolota, who led the op at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in capital Lusaka, reckons she will pull through.
The dad of two said: “It wasn’t easy surgery. There wasn’t enough oxygen in her blood so we had to work on that. It’s a balance. We were worried about her heart.
“The baby was lying between life and death and tipping more towards death. But now she is breathing and things are looking good.”
KidsOR spent a fortune building a suite of three theatres at the hospital.
They revamped a crumbling unit built in 1983 that was no longer fit for purpose.
Before that, surgeons were forced to work with whatever they had to hand when battling to save a kid’s life.
But for this latest case, the fragile baby lay on a heated bed, getting rid of the need to wrap her in anything.
During the tense four-hour op anaesthetist Sompwe Mwansa, 37, used the new machinery to keep a close eye on the patient.
She said: “They are my eyes in terms of what’s happening with the lungs, blood pressure, heart, all those sorts of things. The more precise they are, the better I am and the safer I am for the child.”
Seith credited the charity with saving the girl’s life, as well as tens of thousands of other kids around the world. He said: “She had no chance without Kids Operating Room. The baby definitely would have died. We didn’t have the equipment.
“But now we do. I go into surgeries a lot more confident. I know I can help and I’m saving lives. Thanks to them we have come a long way.”
The situation at UTH today is very different to what it was just a couple of years ago.
Then Dr Bruce Bvulani was the only specialist children’s surgeon for the whole country. He was responsible for treating a population of more than eight million youngsters with primitive facilities and equipment. Kids were dying and waiting lists soared.
The government had no cash for a training programme and even now struggles to pay the £1,200 monthly salary for consultants. Some graduates are still paid trainee wages.
When KidsOR arrived on the scene, its mission was purely to build theatres. But Bruce played a big part in getting them to expand their vision to start a scholar scheme to help train new doctors.
Now there are nine paediatric surgeons in Zambia, with Bruce and his team currently training ten more. When they graduate they will spread across the country making a massive impact on how children are treated.
Bruce said: “I was on my own. We were struggling and couldn’t keep on top of the waiting lists. Without Kids Operating Room we wouldn’t have been able to do any of this.
“We could have asked the govern-ment but very few things if any were available for us. It’s almost like an answer to our prayers.”
Anaesthetist Sompwe believes a knock-on effect of the training scheme is that more Zambians are now graduating as medics and treating kids at the hospital. She said: “It makes so much difference for the parents to see somebody who looks like them and speaks like them taking their child into a theatre. Someone they can communicate with.
“Those are some of the small and subtle things that you don’t realise when starting a programme like this but it becomes very apparent, very quickly.”
Since the facility opened in December 2021 the number of daily ops has jumped from about eight to at least 20 at UTH, and waiting lists have plummeted.
Dr Martha Mukonka, 36, visited UTH while she was still a student and spoke to Bruce. At the time there was no training programme for surgeons and the future looked bleak. But she graduated last year, thanks to financial support from KidsOR, and works alongside her hero.
Bruce said: “She was very enthusiastic so I made her promise that she would come back. I didn’t think she would. People would always come and then go.”
Martha added: “He is my mentor. He’s the father figure. He’s the one who has made this all possible. When there was no training he fought for it.”
MY VIEW: STUART PATTERSON
SOME of the things I experienced during my trip to Zambia hit me like a punch in the gut.
We constantly moan about the state of the NHS in Scotland, but it’s the height of luxury compared to the hospitals I visited.
No child in the UK would ever have to spend a second on the like of the bleak, rundown wards I walked through. Pet owners would refuse to have their beloved cat or dog treated in those conditions, to be honest.
As a dad, and human being, there is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing miserable kids lying on shabby beds that are falling to bits, and not being able to do anything to help.
My heart broke for the amazing staff who keep fighting to make things better, every single day, despite sometimes insurmountable odds.
I was surprised to see so many smiles and happy faces despite the horrendous surroundings.
But that’s Zambia in a nutshell. It’s a beautiful place with truly amazing people. They deserve so much better.
Thankfully, things are changing and the work done by Kids Operating Room will save and change countless lives. Their theatres are already bringing hope.
With the cost of living crisis biting and life feeling that bit harder, most of us in Scotland feel hard done by right now.
But the trip to Zambia showed me just how incredibly lucky we all are.
But despite everything he’s achieved, Bruce thinks there is still a lot more progress to be made.
He said: “Sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed. I just did what I had to do.
“I think we can celebrate what we’ve done but we need to keep pushing and looking to the future.
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“We need more trainees. Off the cuff, I’d say we need at least 100. As long as I’m alive I’ll keep fighting.”
- TO learn more about the work of Kids Operating Room, and support it, kidsor.org
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