This month, InterSurgeon had the privilege of speaking with Dr Khalid about his organisation the Know it health foundation. This passion project is all about education of paediatric surgical conditions in rural settings; “KHF is a registered community based organization with ref IDLG/0122024 that promotes surgical care outside the sterile walls/ operation rooms through a community based approach.”. Dr Khalid set this foundation up one year ago when he was a medical student after research with Kids OR into paediatric surgery in government hospitals and operation rooms titled; “Factors associated with increased prevalence of unattended pediatric surgical conditions in Iganga and bugweri district, Eastern Uganda”. He says: “Surgery is not confined to the operating theatre… there is good sensitisation to medical conditions but not surgical, [people need] knowledge on which condition they are battling and where to seek help.”
The Know it health foundation
The Know it health foundation seeks to act as a an educational tool: “The initiative aims to identify the most pressing paediatric surgical conditions per region, provision of basic information for prevention, early detection and guidance on when and where to seek surgical services. The initiative also seeks to act as a link between other surgical service providers and the rural communities.”. By going out and reaching the rural communities in eastern Uganda, Dr Khalid and volunteers are working hard to empower these communities to make informed health decisions concerning paediatric surgical conditions; “For a child born with a club foot, they [the caregivers] don’t know what do to next. The services are there in some government hospitals, but people don’t know that this condition can be operated on and they don’t know where the services are. There is a lack of the knowledge about the condition they are battling and where to seek help; people don’t know what to do. [We]need to empower people with basic knowledge of what can be prevented. Some things can be prevented and some can’t.” The Know it health foundation aims to provide information on prevention, early detection and guidance of when and where to seek surgical assistance.
Dr Khalid mentions that there are many challenges that face these rural populations and financial is not always the limiting factor. Illiteracy seems to be one of the greatest challenges – this he identified through his research with Kids OR “It was through this that I identified community ileteracy being a significant factor to unmet surgical needs.”. They predominantly work with the audio/visual model. It is a model which has worked well with medical conditions and now rural community sensitisation to medical illnesses such as HIV and malaria is good thanks to mass communication projects; ‘Deep in the villages, they know all of the signs and symptoms… this is now the work of surgeons. Children are dying because mothers are involving traditional healers. [We] reach out to mothers, teach them and some are seeing some improvement. If [the caregivers]delay, there is another complication that will happen.”
InterSurgeon
As a SOTA fellow in the G4 alliance, Dr Khalid has been actively participating in the Children’s working group and heard about InterSurgeon; “I saw the initiative and thought it was really great. [The Know it health foundation] is not something big, I am pushing it as an individual. Any knowledge can be shared, the challenge is about resources.” He has been translating the resources to the local community. He has experienced some barriers as he is only recently qualified as a doctor himself. He says this project is driven by passion.
Dr Khalid has willing volunteers to work with him, sometimes they experience issues with transport to the rural communities themselves. In addition, he has been working hard on developing strategies where there are no funds in surgery for this community work. He is working to build a link between surgical providers and community.
Global surgical community help
At the moment, he specifically looking for assistance with teaching resources, in particular animations about specific surgical conditions.
If you would can help Dr Khalid, please click here for the Know it health foundation profile.
