Holy Family Catholic Hospital-Berekum Begins Training on Inguinal Hernia Repair Surgeons.

Ghana is facing a significant shortage of trained inguinal hernia surgeons, leading to a backlog of cases. It is estimated that about 2 million men aged 15 years and above require hernia repairs.

To tackle this major public health concern, medical professors are calling for more skilled surgeons to bridge the gap. In line with this, the Holy Family Catholic Hospital in Berekum in the Bono region has begun training young doctors to boost the delivery of inguinal hernia surgeries in the country.

Among some medical professors seeking to bridge the gap of shortage in surgeons including Prof Stephen Tabri, Prof Michael Ohene Yeboah and Prof Francis Abantanga in partnership with the Holy Family Catholic Hospital have taken the initiative to train young doctors at the Hospital with the skill to do same as the experience doctors.

Professor Michael Ohene Yeboah of the Department of Surgery, University of Ghana Medical School, expressed concern about the limited number of fully trained surgeons available for inguinal hernia operations locally which needs local solutions. He noted that the hospital, in collaboration with the Ghana Surgeons Society, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and the Global Surgery Unit, is working to equip more young doctors with the necessary skills to reduce the shortage of surgeons at most districts hospitals across the country.

He added that, the partnership between them and the hospital will boost the move to see more young doctors operating inguinal hernia repairs other than leaving it to only one doctor for example seeing Dr. Enoch Frank Gyamfi taking care of all hernia repairs.

On his part, the Medical Director and Consultant Surgeon at the Holy Family Catholic Hospital in Berekum, Dr. Frank Enoch Gyamfi, also emphasized that the shortage of surgeons has left a huge number of hernia cases untreated, posing serious health risks to men across the country. He explained that the hospital is committed to training more doctors to address the gap and improve surgical delivery.

He stated that, at least, the hospital can only cater for just 7 or 8 hernia repairs operations and this calls for more doctors to support in the hernia mesh repairs.

Some of the young doctors who benefitted from the structured surgical training expressed excitement about the opportunity, describing it as a step toward addressing the shortage of hernia surgeons, particularly in the Bono Region and the entire country.

Dr. Daniel Adjie and Dr. Frank Asare Kyeremeh expressed their appreciation to the professors for their intellectual mentorship on such an emerging surgeons on hernia repairs and the surgical training they have acquired within the time of their training will go a long way to reduce the shortage of surgeons.