We’ve installed 50 Operating Rooms!

We did it! 

If three years ago you asked the team of four at KidsOR how many Operating Rooms they would have installed by the end of 2021, the answer would probably not have been the big 5 0. Today, we celebrate an incredible landmark as we officially open the 50th KidsOR Operating Room, installed at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, in Kumasi, Ghana. With this installation, we are creating capacity for more than 30,000 operations a year. That's 30,000 children every year who now can access the safe surgery they deserve.

Since the beginning, our vision has been simple: to create a world where every child has access to safe surgery by ensuring local surgical teams have the necessary tools to care for their nation’s children.

“This is a remarkable achievement since our inception in 2018, particularly as for nearly half of this time we have been living with a global pandemic”

KidsOR Co-Founder, Garreth Wood

We believe in creating sustainable healthcare systems, which is why we don’t only install and equip Operating Rooms. As well as shipping all the necessary equipment for a paediatric Operating Room from our Centre for Global Operations in Dundee, we also fund the training of future paediatric surgeons through the provision of surgical scholarships.

The world over celebrates the incredible milestone #50KidsORs

The work we do would not be possible without the support of many, but especially of the medical professionals we work with. Dr Amoah, a Senior Specialist Paediatric Surgeon and the Head of the Paediatric Surgery Unit at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, joined in congratulating us for achieving such a huge milestone: “I pursued medicine out of passion to help the sick to get appropriate medical care, and I will now be able to do that to the best of my ability thanks to KidsOR and the new Operating Rooms.”

Since our inception in 2018, we have installed Operating Rooms across all over Africa and in parts of Latin America. With the installation of these two Operating Rooms in Ghana, we now have ORs in 20 countries. 

Where it all started

Dr John Sekabira was one of the very few paediatric surgeons working in Uganda. Based in the capital city of Kampala, he was trying to care for as many of the country’s 20 million children as he possibly could – that's about the population of New York. 

Unfortunately, without a dedicated children’s Operating Room, the limited resources were regularly allocated to adult surgeries. The solution seemed simple: create a dedicated paedriatric operating theatre with its own admissions space.

In high-income countries having a paediatric surgical wing is the norm; however, this isn’t always the case in low-and middle-income countries.The KidsOR team soon realised that this simple approach was working and started planning to install as many children’s Operating Room as possible with the help of local surgical teams and health ministers.

Where next?

We have huge plans and ambitions to bring safe surgery to every child. By 2030, we plan to create 120 centres of excellence across East and West Africa, each with world-class, state-of-the-art operating rooms, pre -and post-operative care. We will also expand our work in Latin America and other parts of the world. We will continue to advocate for children’s surgery and the right for universal healthcare access.

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