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| Visiting Specialists from Germany Exchanging with Staff of Betta Health |
A special health campaign championed by some specialists that flew into Cameroon from Germany took place in Yaoundé, precisely at Betta Health, located at Entrée Ministre, Nkozoa. Some of the specialists are members of Camfomedics, a medical forum of German-Cameroonian healthcare providers.
For over two weeks, that is 4th to 15th November 2024, the team, made up of urologists, oncologists and other specialists drawn from Cameroon and Germany like Dr. Ousman Doh, Dr. Franklin Danki, Dr. Rebecca Bucker, Dr. Ivo Azeh, Chief Dr. Walters Fomuki, Johana Sikora and Damian Sikora carried out minimal invasive laparoscopic and endosurgical procedures, diagnosis and treatment of urinary inconsistencies, laser surgery of urogenital stones, checkup, treatment and management of prostate, bladder and renal cancers.
Apart from handling these cases, they also offered intensive bedside training and skills development to other staff members of Betta Health on management, disinfection and hygiene in the theatre and of instruments, quality control plus proper mounting and usage of some new diagnostic and therapeutic equipment that were recently brought to the clinic.
Dr. Rebecca Bucker is a radio oncologist with special interest in the digitalisation of health recordings. Also, she's part of the team that's implementing Tumor Board, an interdisciplinary conference where cancer cases are presented and different specialists in the multidisciplinary group decide on the best concept to handle each case.
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| Carrying Out a Surgical Operation at Betta Health |
With the help of Camfomedics, a software known as Koegni-eHealth was developed with vision to use Information and Communication Technology to enable equity of access to quality care for all. An important measure for the achievement of this vision in Africa and other less developed countries is to make sure that research, implementation and other relevant results of works conducted in the area of eHealth, digital health and biomedical informations in these countries are accessible.
The Baptist Hospital in Bamenda has already been using the platform with plans to also start using it at Betta Health, Yaounde. Contacts have been made with other health facilities in the country that could be interested in using this tool for cancer patient management and decision making.
Dr. Ousman Doh, a urologist from Hamburg, Germany with expertise in laparoscopic and robotic surgeries was part of the team. Using new modern surgical technics which reduces the mobility and complications of surgery resulting to better recovery and short stay in the hospital was his focus. The visiting team of specialists also had as objective, the implementation of new diagnostic methods by building a focal point for urology diagnosis and therapy at Betta Health by introducing the urodynamic machine used for diagnosis of patients with incontinence, select patients with prostate issues. It is the very first in the whole of Central Africa.
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| Urodynamic Machine at Betta Health, First in Central Africa |
The staff of Betta Health together with those from other health facilities that indicated interest were trained on how to install, use and maintain the urodynamic machine plus interpret its results.
In evaluating the outcome of their mission, Dr. Ivo admitted that patients came in to seek second opinion and interdisciplinary discussions were held on the kind of cancers they have, the best treatment options, other recommendations. He said "We also saw cancer cases ranging from sarcoma, breast, thyroid, bladder, prostate that came to have a second opinion but most of the patients had either bladder or prostate cancer"
He added that the intensive training, consultation and treatment program they cames for was partly supported by the German cooperation GIZ. To him, generally the goal is having Betta Health as a modern service provider in Cameroon bringing in innovative therapeutic and diagnostics options in health and improving the access to these special therapists that people used to travel out to have them.
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| Modern Delivery Bed at Betta Health, Yaounde |
Given the broad network of specialists available in the team, based at home in Cameroon and abroad in Germany, they're extending their services into telemedicine, tele-consultations since they have modern diagnostics possibilities. The second edition of the health campaign has already been announced for either March or April 2025 still at Betta Health, Nkozoa, Yaounde.
