Bangor Masanga Anaesthesia Project

Masanga Hospital is a 120 bed government district general hospital in rural Sierra Leone – a country still dealing with the devastating consequences of a civil war in the 1990s and the Ebola virus epidemic of 2014-2016. Masanga has a strong reputation across the country for its surgical and trauma services. Surgeons trained at Masanga now perform over half the surgeries across the whole country. Comparatively, the anaesthetic capabilities are significantly less developed at Masanga and throughout Sierra Leone. Anaesthesia techniques across the country suffer from an overstretched work force and very limited equipment and medications required for the safe practice of anaesthesia. This leads to patients dying needlessly from anaesthetic complications during surgery due to an absence of reliable anaesthetic techniques and equipment. The Bangor Masanga Partnership was established in 2024 by members of the Ysbyty Gwynedd anaesthetic department and the anaesthetic team at Masanga. The partnership aims to support the development of anaesthetic services at Masanga through reciprocal visits by members of both teams, training courses, equipment procurement and financial support for running costs. Staff at Ysbyty Gwynedd have much to learn from the ingenuity and adaptability of professionals at Masanga who practise in a demanding environment with severely limited resources. The partnership hopes to emulate the success of surgical training at Masanga by contributing to anaesthesia training not only at the hospital but across the whole country. The funds raised will help buy life-saving medications and equipment for anaesthesia at Masanga. Crucially it will also support the training of anaesthetists across Sierra Leone to provide safe surgery and save lives. Thank you sincerely for your support.