Early Reading Books

John Kelly - 'Fistula Legend'

As a young gynaecologist in1967 John volunteered to work for a year in a mission hospital in Nigeria. On the back of this 3 years later he agreed to go to the fistula hospital in Ethiopia to give holiday relief for the 2 doctors. Since then for 40 years he has never stopped doing short trips in scores of places all over Africa and S Asia, becoming easily the most experienced VVF surgeon in UK, with about 8,000 cases behind him.

Last week I had a call from Kitovu the largest VVF work in Uganda to help them with 40 patients remaining after a huge camp. Only one doctor remained, the 79 year-old JK. So I came, and shared a flat with him.

John is unpretentious, and humble about his extraordinary experience. He has a lovely smile and chuckles away with remarks on homespun philosophies. He still picks away at the toughest VVFs, reluctant to ever say that a case is inoperable. He has been retiring for many years, but next year may be the last. "I'm not improving much these days, David." he said.

Fistula camp

Judith Goh was my first trainer in Sierra Leone, apart from Jerry, whom I took over from. She is of diminutive size, but great in terms of experience, dexterity, and speed. She came all the way from Australia for 2 weeks to help with the 53 fistula cases (included 13 obstetric tears) we had lined up. It was an excellent camp.

Most of the women were from the area I grew up in in S. Uganda, and some recalled my parents and grandparents! My boyhood Rukiga, Swahili, and now Lukonzo came in useful on ward rounds. Playing Scottish reels on my laptop further lightened the atmosphere in the recovery ward!

4 women, aged 18, 19, 20, and 30 have undergone 6 hour operations creating a new bladder from bowel (Mitoffanov for the technical) by Dr Frank and myself. Cecilia (photo) had hers 4 months ago, and Evas (photo), Judith and Grace this week

Pig roast at end of term

The final year students at school have been boarding for 3 months, and have not eaten meat once. They also haven't had rice for 6 weeks- just bananas, beans and casava. Helen's idea of celebrating with roast pork and rice met with huge excitement.

The pig was one of three owned by a teacher who wants a video camera for his wedding photography business. Helen negotiated the pig in January in exchange for a 2nd hand video camera which we bought recently on e-bay in the UK.

The evening with 60 students and teachers was a riot of games, speeches, songs, and eating huge piles of rice and chunks of tasty tender fried pork. They will sleep well tonight before their mock exams tomorrow.