Goderich Surgical Centre

The Sierra Leone reference hospital for surgery and traumatology.

The EMERGENCY Surgery Centre in Goderich has a huge impact and importance for the Country: during the 2014 and 2015 epidemic of Ebola, it was the only hospital which remained open, even when the structures of Sierra Leone – especially surgical ones – have been closed for weeks for fear of contagion.

The Reference Centre for Traumatology

The Surgical Centre is the reference hospital for traumatology for the entire Sierra Leone: many patients are transferred to Goderich from hospitals in other provinces and sometimes also from neighbouring Countries.

Limited at first to urgent and war-related surgery, our admission criteria have progressively expanded. Today they cover traumatology, urgent surgery for treatment of pathologies such as hernias and intestinal perforations, and elective surgery.

The Centre also has a guesthouse to accommodate relatives and people accompanying patients from far away.

The program for oesophageal burns

The program for the treatment of oesophagus burns caused by accidental ingestion of caustic soda, a fairly common phenomenon in a Country where soap is manufactured at home, is the only one across the Country.

The didactic work

International staff is engaged in training local staff; a didactic work whose importance is acknowledged by the local health ministry who asked us to train the nurses involved in anaesthesia, recognising our hospital as a “training school”.

Activities at the Centre are funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation