Dr Clare Attwood is a UK anaesthetist currently working at Juba Teaching Hospital in South Sudan. Lifebox was able to send her two pulse oximeters to keep in the operating rooms at Juba, and we were so happy to get the email below and hear that they’re making a difference already!
You can read more about anaesthesia at Juba, and medicine across South Sudan on her blog here: www.southsudanmedicaljournal.wordpress.com
“South Sudan is a brand new country, adjusting to its newfound independence. The infrastructure and the finances are not yet fully developed, and Juba Teaching Hospital frequently has no electricity or running water. However, when there is emergency surgery to be done, we have to work in spite of this. It is not uncommon to start a procedure with electricity and finish without.
Another power outage - medical staff work by torch light to finish an operation
The anaesthetic medical assistants make the best of working within an extremely resource poor setting. Their ability to “make do and mend” is inspiring. However, I soon realised it was not possible to mend everything and there are some things that you’d really prefer not to do without, pulse oximeters included. The theatre building comprises of three theatres and only one had access to a functional oximeter – and that was mains electricity dependent, lasting only a few minutes on battery power when the electricity cut.
The day that I took the Lifebox oximeters to work, we had a patient who required an emergency laparotomy for bowel obstruction. Soon after the rapid sequence induction and intubation the electricity cut. One of the other anaesthetists immediately went to get an oximeter and we all breathed a sigh of relief when the display demonstrated a good waveform and healthy oxygen saturations.
Emergency laparotomy the day the Lifebox pulse oximeter arrives
Pulse-oximetry saves lives. Being able to monitor the saturations of all of our patients undergoing procedures in any of our theatres will make our working life less stressful and our practice safer. Having to choose which patient to monitor and delaying surgery because of a lack of basic monitoring are problems that myself and the other anaesthetists at Juba Teaching Hosptial will no longer have to worry about.
Thank you Lifebox! Now on to trying to solve those 101 other issues…”
safersurgery 
Claire has done a fantastic job in Juba, Everything she says is reflected across the whole of southern Sudan and I know how welcome any piece of equipment can be. We are working in Wau, 500 miles away in southern Sudan and on my next visit in April I hope to send more feedback on the value of the lifebox. We have one such device in Wau, which is currently being used by the paediatric department as they have received the necessary training to understand pulse oximetry. I am hoping to receive a second to take to the theatre suite along with the excellent training DVD and will feed back on our return..
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