Duke Surplus Supports Ugandan Neurosurgery

Duke Surplus

Published July 16, 2007, last updated on February 25, 2013

When Duke neurosurgeon Michael Haglund, M.D., Ph.D., visited New Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda last January, he was astounded at what he saw.

“This national hospital has 1,500 beds and only one ventilator,” he says. “When they anesthetize patients, they have to handbag—have people squeezing a bag of oxygen to help a person breathe. They don’t have plates to hold the skull flaps in place, so people who have had brain surgery often have grotesque swelling of their heads because the sutures aren’t strong enough to hold the skull flap in place. In the orthopedic operating room, they still use ether to anesthetize people. By mid-afternoon, they have to stop surgery because the nurses and doctors are beginning to faint from the ether fumes. They do brain surgery with technology that was used at Duke in the 30s and 40s.”

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"They do brain surgery with technology that was used at Duke in the 30s and 40s."

-Michael Haglund, M.D., Ph.D.