From Sebastian R. Freiku
A seven-member team of plastic surgeons from the United States of America has arrived in Kumasi to offer free medical services to people with deformities and other related congenital diseases.
The team, led by Dr. Michael K. Obeng, a US-based Ghanaian plastic surgeon, in collaboration with local plastic surgeons at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), will perform surgeries in a week-long exercise at the Burns and Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.
Members of the Ghanaian medical team included Prof. Pius Agbenorku, Head of KATH Surgery Department, Dr. Oheneba Danso, Dr. Prince Boahene and Dr. Anita Botchway.
Dr. Obeng, the founder of Restoring Emotional Stability Through Outstanding Reconstructive Efforts (RESTORE), a non-profit medical service organisation in California, in 2008 said he was inspired by the devastating effects of diseases and the negative social consequences of deformities in Africa in general, and that his outfit would assist persons with deformities and provide free reconstructive surgery and medical services to children and adults with deformities from birth, accidents and diseases.
Those with various degrees of burns from gas, fire, oil and acid would also benefit from the package.
Dr. Obeng noted that in many development countries, people afflicted with disfiguring deformities are regarded as outcasts and looked down upon by their own families, hence the overwhelming need for reconstructive surgery in Africa and other developing countries.
He said, as a Ghanaian, he felt the need to respond to the plight of persons with deformities, hence, the one week exercise at KATH, which was facilitated by Ms. Dawn Sutherland, a black American resident in Kumasi, who serves as the International Director of RESTORE, and Mr. Daniel Okyem Aboagye aspiring member of parliament of the Bantama NPP constituency.
The surgeon, born at Mbrom in Kumasi and a product of Prempeh College, who practices plastic surgery at Beverley Hills, California in the US, said RESTORE would further educate and train local physicians to sustain the exercise for the benefit of many more people in the years ahead.
RESTORE, currently on its sixth visit to Ghana, has already been to Gabon, Congo Brazzaville and Guatemala in Central America on similar missions. Ms. Sutherland explained that the focus of RESTORE is to assist and bring comfort to persons with deformities who cannot afford the cost of treatment