volunteers
patients treated
hospitals
in-kind donations for supplies and equipment
Mozambique 2023
Transforming Lives in Mozambique
The mission to Mozambique focused on enhancing local efforts in Maputo and Matola by bringing in necessary supplies and medical practitioners to support the incredible teams at two local hospitals.
Patient Highlight
Meet Niyara
This little girl is 7 years old and was born with a mass on her palm. Over the years it has grown rapidly in size to the point of being the size of a baseball. She couldn’t use her hand because every time it would rub against something it would open up and grow even larger.
Due to the complexity of the case with it being a vascular tumor, she hadn’t had it operated on. But with the help of the smart glasses, Dr. Pedro and Dr. Kulber were able to operate on her together and finally have the mass completely removed! During follow-up with the smart glasses, she is doing amazing and now has full function of her hand to be able to play, write, and be a kid again! We were able to use the donated MTF cadaveric dermis tissue during her surgery, which ended up completely healing her hand without the need of a skin graft, and without any contracture.
Our Work
Our team was made of 7 medical volunteers, 4 documentary filmmaking volunteers, and 5 non-medical volunteers. We operated in 3 hospitals in Mozambique. Our team worked tirelessly to provide complex surgery to 15 children and adults, worked in the burn unit for inpatient care, and at the same time provided training to the local doctors, nurses and residents.
We took every opportunity to teach in the Operating Room and the burn unit, and lead multiple journal clubs with the plastic surgery residents and surgeons, and formal educational teaching sessions. We saw approximately 80 patients during our mission week. We are proud to announce that we were able to hand-carry the first Starlink Satellite Wifi to the country of Mozambique. This is one of the first starlinks to be deployed to the entire continent of Africa, and the very first starlink to be deployed dedicated to surgical training and education in the world!
Team
Our team consisted of volunteer surgeons, pediatric anesthesiologist, physical therapist, nurses, and PAs operated at 3 hospitals; Maputo Central Hospital, the Maputo private hospital, and Matola Provincial Hospital to maximize our time in the country. We performed life-saving and limb-salvaging surgeries from release of burn contracture releases of the extremities, expansive burn debridements, post traumatic eye reconstructive surgeries, nasolabial/columella flap reconstructions after cancer, complex hand mass excisions, tissue expander placements for multi-stage facial reconstructions, and numerous debridements and skin grafts for burn patients.
At the same time, the nursing and physical therapist team provide training in person such as wound debridements, dressing changes, wound care, splint application, sepsis and shock education, and post surgical care education at the hospitals. By the end of our trip, the local medical trainees were able to perform most of the procedures on their own.
Our team included: Dr. David Kulber, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Michele Dee, Anesthesiologist with Cedars-Sinai, Kylie Tanabe, Physician Assistant-Plastic Surgery, Sandra Rodriguez, Registered Nurse, Nia Mesah, Physical Therapist, Katie Osborn, Registered Nurse and Kim Souza, Hand Surgery fellow.
Partners
We received $711,076 in in-kind donations for supplies and equipment we used during the mission. We couldn’t have done this without your help!
Thank you to MTF Biologics for donating cell dressings which drastically expedite healing for burn victims.
We also appreciate InvinciKids for helping introduce VR solutions to our surgical missions and beyond.
Continued Support
Ohana One is dedicated to sustainable year-round continuation of training of medical knowledge, and surgical training. During our time in Mozambique, we conducted daily educational sessions with formal presentations, journal clubs and training in hand and plastic surgery. It is important to continue this training, and the deployment of the Starlink Satellite will provide much-needed reliable wifi to the residents and surgeons in the hospital, something that they did not have previously.
After the mission, Ohana one continues to provide journal clubs and live-surgery training with the help of the Starlink wifi, and the smart glasses.
We even started a research project titled: “Analgesic use of Virtual Reality for Burn Dressing changes in Low/Middle Income Countries”-17 patients. This looked at pre-dressing pain scales with and without the use of virtual reality glasses. We continue to work on this for publication post-mission. We are so thankful to all our donors, sponsors and partners who were part of this mission and helped us provide training, resources and surgical care to the people of Mozambique.
The smiles on the faces of the people we helped were priceless. Knowing we made a tangible difference filled me with an indescribable sense of fulfillment.
Nia Mensah, founder of Kusudi International
