The Clarós Foundation moves into this small African country, one of the poorest in the world and with a life expectancy of around 40 years
The Clarós Foundation, founded by the full academician and vice-president of the Governing Board of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) Pedro Clarós, carried out a new humanitarian mission between the past 2 and 12 January, which this time its scope of action in the small African country of Burundi. A team of the Foundation joined the local staff of the CMCK Hospital in Bujumbura, one of the best equipped in the country, to carry out various training courses and to practice some 60 ear surgeries, maxillofacial surgery and facial plastic surgery, in addition to a large number of arteriovenous fistulas that will make life longer for patients on dialysis due to renal failure. Some interventions that ran by Francisco Vidal-Barraquer.
Located in East Africa, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika and neighbouring Rwanda and Tanzania, Burundi is a small republic with 10 million inhabitants and is considered one of the poorest countries on the planet. The political tensions are great and until last year the violence was extreme, which has generated an increase in poverty. To prevent this country from falling into an abyss, the Church, the United Nations agencies and numerous NGOs working in the field call on the world to hear their request for help. The Clarós Foundation received this message from one of the most emblematic doctors in Burundi and decided to carry out a new mission, the 110th in its history, despite the difficulties that could be encountered.
The total number of patients operated on was 60, the consultations made of 120 and 30 patients were adapted a hearing aid for free to improve their hearing. In Burundi there is no organized public health. Patients must resort to private centres or centres dependent on NGOs. In this country it’s estimated that there is a hospital bed per thousand inhabitants, very insufficient for a population that has many more pathologies than in Western countries. The life expectancy is 40 years.
Established more than two decades ago, the Clarós Foundation has already carried out more than a hundred missions in twenty countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, where it has carried out interventions on neck and face tumours, reconstructions of the face by traumatisms and tropical diseases and even amputations. Surgeries to which the beneficiaries did not have access. To these missions are added the training scholarships granted to physicians from other countries, with stays in Barcelona of up to six months.
The Clarós Foundation and the RAED signed a collaboration agreement that commits the Royal Academy to sponsor the solidarity actions of the foundation and join actively to the events held in Barcelona and other Spanish cities to publicize their work and obtain funding.
