Promoting Major Pediatric Surgical Care in a Low-Income Country: A 4-Year Experience in Eritrea

Access to pediatric surgical care in many sub-Saharan African countries is strongly limited by lack of medical facilities, adequate transport system, and trained medical and nursing manpower. The mortality rate for major congenital abnormalities remains extremely elevated in this area of the world. Strong efforts have been spent during the past decades to elevate the level of pediatric surgery standards in these countries through cooperation programs acting through periodical medical missions or supporting local medical teaching institutions. This is a report of a partnership between an Italian Medical Institution and the Eritrean Ministry of Health with the goal to improve pediatric surgical standard of care in the country.

During the past 4 years, teams composed of two pediatric surgeons, a pediatric anesthetist, and a pediatric nurse regularly visited the Orotta Medical and Surgical Referral Hospital of Asmara (Eritrea) to offer modern surgical treatment to children with major congenital abnormalities and to offer academic training to local medical and nursing staff. The team worked in local health structures. A total of 714 patients have been visited and 430 surgical procedures have been performed during 35 weeks of clinical work. Among them were 32 anorectal malformations, 11 Hirschsprung’s disease cases, 8 bladder extrophies, and many other major surgical problems, such as congenital intestinal obstructions, obstructive uropathies, and solid tumors.

The standard of care has been based on the principle of researching sustainable solutions. Surgical options and timing of each procedure have been decided to reduce hospitalization and the recourse to temporary stomas, indwelling catheterization, and prolonged intravenous feeding. Posterior sagittal anorectoplasties (PSARP) and posterior vagino-anorectoplasty (PSVARP) were performed for anorectal malformations, introducing minimal technical variants to reduce the need for postoperative nursing. Endorectal pull-through of functional stoma was the treatment of choice for patients with Hirschsprung’s disease because frozen sections were not possible. Eight late-referred bladder extrophy cases were all managed by internal diversion (Mainz II pouch). Solid abdominal tumors always came to observation weeks or months after the first symptoms appeared. No CT scan was available and indications of surgery were based on clinical symptoms only. Only 11 of 18 cases were resectable, and only 5 of them with favorable histology survived, 2 after adjuvant therapy abroad. A large number of hypospadias were observed at the mean age of 4.5 years. Failures of previous attempts at correction were frequently found. The postoperative complications rate progressively decreased with the use of dripping stents to avoid the risk of accidental catheter removal or kinking.

On the basis of our experience, major pediatric surgery in many under-resourced areas of sub-Saharan Africa can be developed, taking care to adapt surgical options to local conditions. Late referral of many congenital abnormalities, the impact of local culture, difficulties to establish regular follow-up, and shortage of facilities and medical devices must always be kept in mind before transferring modern protocols of management. Strong efforts have been devoted to train local medical and nursing staff to establish pediatric surgical manpower to cope with a still largely unanswered demand of care in this area of Africa.