SDC decides to support 2nd Chance until 2015

The African Division of the Humanitarian Aid renews its support to the organization of plastic and reconstructive surgery workshops for African general surgeons. The project of 2nd Chance aiming at organizing 3 basic and 3 specialized seminars received the support of the Swiss Development and Cooperation Division.

In August 1998, a double terrorist attack strikes Nairobi and Dar are – Salaam, causing  victims in hundreds. Facing the scale of needs, persons in charge of the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA) ) decided to organize a first course in Dar-es-Salaam to bring help to the victims of these attacks. This first workshop of reconstructive surgery was organized in January, 1999  in Tanzania.

Due to success and the request which aroused from this event, the second course was organsed in November, 2002 in Ginga/Uganda. The basic idea of these first two courses was to conjugate treatments of basic surgical reconstruction with a corresponding teaching of techniques in order to meet the needs of surgeons in the region.

This primary objective was and still remains today to train African surgeons locally and to improve the surgical techniques of these doctors  who work in conflict zones and who face the mutilations of numerous patients. Since 1999, teams of specialized surgeons collaborates with medical teams in several countries of east Africa and the Great Lakes region for the development of reconstructive surgery in favour of patients suffering from the aftereffects of burns and traumas, from deformations, from tumors and from nomas.

Since 1999, thirteen courses have been organised continuously, under the responsibility of Dr Quinodoz,in several countries of Africa in particular of Southern Africa and region of Great Lakes. Needs remain nevetheless immense due to number of victims of conflicts and lack of  surgeons trained in reconstructive surgery.