With the widespread availability of cellular networks, improved bandwidth in Africa and access to new technologies in the field of videoconferencing, a new era of medical practice is emerging, allowing teams to experiment with new forms of skill transmission, including in the very complex field of fistula surgery.
Thus, during our April 2022 mission to Benin, Fistula Group initiated a “live” training programme in Tanguiéta through video transmission. This experiment prefigures a new form of distance learning by specialist doctors from the hospital.
Less costly in terms of travel, these “lives” are an opportunity for training because they make it possible to attend operations carried out by world-renowned operators and to interact with them in real time. Eventually, this facility could facilitate telementoring, allowing an expert to give advice without being physically present in the operating room and to provide real-time support for complex surgery.
In this context, the Tanguiéta medical team was able to organise, in December, “Les Premières Journées Scientifiques de Tanguiéta”, a series of conferences, followed by live surgeries, which met with great success and will be repeated in 2023.
The year 2022 also marks an important turning point in the operating methods for Tanguiéta, as the GFMER has financed the purchase of the technical platform for laparoscopic surgery.
Scaling up of the Tanguiéta model
Through FIGO (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics), whose Committee I joined at the end of 2021, we have a wonderful opportunity to disseminate our good practices, in the spirit of the principle of the Tanguiéta model (treatment, training, research, prevention, reintegration of patients, awareness-raising of the population) and to extend our network in francophone Africa in particular. We regularly exchange our experiences, share our expertise during remote meetings, and reciprocally, we strengthen national skills thanks to these networks, by sending our partners to the field. This is the case in 2023 for Dr Aholou, former GFMER grant holder and now head of the maternity ward of the Saint Jean de Dieu hospital in Tanguiéta, who will go to specialise for 6 weeks at the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa in 2023, invited by FIGO.
From the north of Benin, to the rest of the country, then beyond the national and sub-regional borders…
The centre of gravity is shifting and the question of duplicating solutions envisaged locally is now being considered in other regions of Africa. The change of scale is taking place through the sharing of know-how and experience and the dissemination of research.
C-H. Rochat
Geneva, 3 March 2023
