Progress or Regression?

A sterilizer, two light sources, a head light and its fiberoptic light cable all broke. Power surges destroyed the light sources. Expensive automatic voltage switches will now be used with all equipment. The fiberoptic glass cable melted when the cable was used in another company's light source. A water sensor went in the sterilizer and luckily today a spare got it working again. Medical companies are repairing and sending additional equipment as donations. Their support and generosity is encouraging, heart warming and touches me greatly. It is nice knowing there are many good people who will help.
It has taken over a year to set up a modern ear, nose and throat department at Tamale Teaching Hospital. Only emergency surgery is being performed with over one hundred twenty-five ear elective cases waiting to be done. Once the operating microscope is working, a full surgical schedule will be undertaken. Hopefully this will occur within a month as another replacement transformer will arrive.
While covering the surgical ward when the general surgeons were away, a 12 year old boy was dying from an abscess of his leg. With much opposition from the staff due to their extreme conservatism and reluctance to do something new, an extensive drainage of his loculated abscesses was surgically performed and within several days he improved. It is a great feeling to save a life, especially that of a young child. He gives me a big hello and a smile whenever I pass his bed. When I need cheering up, I go out of my way to visit him. He is gaining weight, moves his leg well and hopefully will not require an amputation. With the return of the general surgeons he is now under their care.
We did the first microscopic mastoidectomy with a drill in Ghana. It was an urgent operation as the man had a periosteal abscess from chronic mastoiditis. A ton of preparatory work was necessary to bring the patient to surgery. During surgery, sterility was broken because the staff lacked proper training. However, the patient did well in spite of this and the sterile technique will improve with time and added equipment.