Day #7: Tuesday Evening October 30th: NEW HEART-LUNG MACHINES !!!

This is the heart-lung machine we've been using since we started the cardiac surgery program at Tenwek Hospital in 2008.  The 3 roller heads on the left are from a heart-lung machine that isn't even manufactured anymore.  The roller head on the far right side of the pump is from a newer heart-lung machine, which is good, since that is the roller pump that pumps the blood to the patient and keeps him/her alive while their heart is stopped during the surgical repair.

Almost 2 years ago, Bob Groom a perfusionist from Maine Medical Center in Portland, MN donated 2 state-of-the-art heart-lung machines to the Tenwek program.  The pumps were picked up at his hospital several days later by John Wright, an administrator within World Medical Missions and shipped to Marian, IN where they were disassembled and crated for delivery to Tenwek Hospital via ship.

Those heart-lung machines have been held up in the port at Mombasa for almost 1.5 years and we have been waiting for word as to when they may be released for use at Tenwek.  The medical and administrative staff have been praying for their delivery all that while and we got word when we arrived at Tenwek on October 26th that the pumps had been released and were on their way to Tenwek!

There is no way for us to know when they will arrive until the truck pulls up to the hospital.  Tuesday afternoon we received word that they had been delivered.  Bob Groom 'just happened' to be working with our team this year, so he was here to assemble the heart-lung machines and able to experience them being put into service almost 2 years after he donated them to us.  Bob was able to spend the entire day on the loading dock to assemble one of the heart-lung machines and had it finished by the time Johnson and I completed the second case of the day.  After cleaning up the OR after the final case, restocking our supplies and setting up a heart-lung machine for the next day, it was 7:00 pm and time for cath conference in the guesthouse. 

During cath conference Dr. Mike and Dr. Ron informed the group that there were many more patients requiring surgery than we could possibly do with just one operating room.  Since the 2 newer heart-lung machines had arrived, the team agreed that we would start operating out of a second cardiac OR starting the next day.  So, after cath conference around 8:00 pm, Bob, Johnson and I went down to the loading docks to put together the second heart-lung machine.  It was in pieces and it took us until around midnight to get it put together, take it to the OR and fit brackets and the perfusion circuit to it so it could be used in the morning. 

The crates on the loading dock of Tenwek Hospital that the heart-lung machines were shipped in.

Tony, our biomedical engineer that helped Bob put together the first heart-lung machine earlier that day.  The pieces around Tony are from the 2nd heart-lung machine that we had to assemble into a functioning machine so it could be used in surgery the next afternoon.

Several hours later, we have our second heart-lung machine!

Shadrack, one of our 2 Kenyan medical staff we are training to run the heart-lung machine came into the cardiac OR to hug the new machine telling us, "this is a blessing from God".

The original Tenwek heart-lung machine is pictured on the left and one of the newer heart-lung machines is on the right.  Tomorrow will be the first day that our cardiac program will be able to operate out of 2 cardiac operating rooms simultaneously.