Portable ultrasound helps volunteers in Sierra Leone

Dr Zul Hanafiah uses SonoSite’s M-Turbo ultrasound system to perform a regional nerve block.

SonoSite’s loan of an M-Turbo hand-carried ultrasound system was of great help for a volunteer team visiting Sierra Leone to perform hand sugery.

The British Society for Surgery of the Hand team, which included anaesthetist Dr Zul Hanafiah from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, spent two weeks performing reconstructive hand surgery for old injuries at the Holy Spirit Hospital in Sierra Leone.  Dr Hanafiah explained: “BSSH works throughout west Africa, offering walk-in reconstructive surgery for old injuries, some of which may have gone untreated for several years.  Teams from the UK, each specialising in a particular type of surgery, travel to local hospitals and spend several weeks triaging and treating patients from the local area.”

“I knew that access to point-of-care ultrasound would be beneficial so I approached our local SonoSite representative.  The company was happy to lend me an M-Turbo system and provided a selection of transducers to go with it.  It improved the efficiency and duration of blocks for regional anaesthesia and post-operative pain relief, giving me complete confidence in the exact location of each injection.”

See this report on page 8 of the April 2013 issue of RAD Magazine.