Masanga Hospital stands for more than just healthcare, education is central in everything we do. We aim to build capacity by seeing every patient and doing every surgical procedure together with our surgical students, community health officers, physiotherapy students and nurses.
The Tonkolili District College of Health Sciences, which is affiliated to the hospital has over 300 nurses in training and is one of the only institutions which offers the state registrar nursing program in rural Sierra Leone. In 2018 the college, in close collaboration with the government of Sierra Leone, started to provide the first official training in physiotherapy to a class of 17 students.
Furthermore, Masanga hospital is the primary training center for the 3-year Surgical Training Program from our partner CapaCare. This program trains Community Health Officers (CHO) in surgical and obstetrical care, in order to decrease maternal mortality and tackle the high surgical need in rural Sierra Leone. Since 2011 we have trained 31 CHO’s in Masanga hospital and this number will only increase as we currently aim to train 20 STP students annually. In 2018 these surgical assisting community health officers (SACHO’s) performed 8000 surgeries, which is roughly 25% of all surgeries in Sierra Leone!
We also provide clinical rotations for about 10 Sierra Leonian medical students annually and host about 10 medical interns from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom each year, offering them a taste of healthcare in Rural Sierra Leone. And we are affiliated with the Dutch International Healthcare and Tropical Medicine training institute, providing the final residency training rotation for 2 doctors each year, after which they become specialists in Global Health and Tropical Medicine.
We believe the education of healthcare professionals is of vital importance because it ensures the future of healthcare in Sierra Leone. We believe building capacity is the best way to combat the high maternal and child mortality in the country. With your help we can continue to do so!
