By Amin Kef Sesay
The Choithram Memorial Hospital, situated at Hill Station, West End of Freetown, is well known for providing highly specialized medical services to people from different backgrounds. Since it started operations years back, Management of the hospital has been working assiduously to ensure that the medical facility is brought up to international standards.
It is against this background that the Choithram hospital has, for the first time in the country, introduced the Fibre Optic Bronchoscope Machine, which is used for examining the lungs, the Bronco tree, especially in relation to looking for foreign bodies and things that might affect the chest and lungs.
When this medium caught up with Dr. John A. Songo-Williams, Consultant Surgeon at the Choithram Memorial Hospital, in order to know about the Fibre Optic Bronchoscope Machine that has been installed at the hospital and what does this mean for the health sector in the country, he was quick to intimate that the Fibre Optic Bronchoscope Machine has definitely given a face lift to the health sector in the country.
He underscored that Management of the hospital decided to embark on these latest developments in order to ensure that the hospital is put on a sound footing, like any other hospital in a developed country. “We are very much passionate about offering the best in terms of qualitative medical treatments with the main objective to save lives,” he stated.
Dr. John A. Songo-Williams revealed that the Fibre Optic Bronchoscope is a diagnostic examination of the major air passages to the lungs, and that this equipment enables the physician to examine the inside of the main windpipe (trachea) and other major air passages, (bronchi) and that it is a safe diagnostic procedure that carries little risk to the patient.
He added that the machine is flexible and can be used to examine all the areas in the lungs, which helps the Doctors to take a good look and if necessary take some biopsy of lesions, adding that sometimes they have to clear some paths from the lungs maintaining that indeed the machine came in quite handy.
The Consultant Surgeon added that the instrument consists of the scope, fiber optic bioscope with a provision for suction and for the injection of fluids into the lungs as the case may be.
He disclosed further that the hospital made use of the Fibre Optic Bronchoscope Machine to remove a foreign body from the right main bronchus of a nine month old baby, which was done free of cost.
Dr. John A. Songo-Williams said that this is a big impact to not only the Choithram hospital but the country as a whole, adding that before now they had only rigid instruments which they were using stating that these rigid instruments don’t negotiate the curves and the corners inside the lungs.
The doctor intimated that before this time, when the hospital was not having such a facility, patients had to travel to countries like Ghana, Nigeria or wherever they can, to access such facilities or its equivalent to handle such situations.
