- Elizabeth A. Kimambo¹, Theresia. A Karuhanga¹,², Fassil Tekie¹,², Rashidi Mayoka¹,², Seth Jotham¹,², Winfred Gingo¹,², Elias Marandu³, Ombeni Bill⁴, Antony Magoda⁵. Isbella Magessa¹,² and Philbert Madoshi⁶
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15597990
- GAS Journal of Clinical Medicine and Medical Research (GASJCMMR)
Introduction: Surgery in children is important medical component in
clinical aspect both emergence and elective aiming to life serving, preventing
disability and improvement of quality of life in diseased children. The cause of
surgery in children are of different categories but can be grouped int
emergency and elective and about 71% of surgeries in some countries in Africa
are due to congenital inguinal scrotal disorders. The causes may differ from
one country to the other. This study aimed to evaluate the surgical services
being provided at Saint Francis Rural Referral Hospital in Tanzania.
Methodology: The retrospective study was done at Saint Francis Referral
Hospital Ifakara Tanzania by using hospital data of the operated children from
2018 to 2024. Non probability purposive sampling was applied to collected the
required information by using data collecting checklist. All meeting criteria
were included. Data analysis was done by using SPSS version 26.
Results: A total of 349 children were operated during the period
involving 65.6% of males and 34.4% females.
Most of the patients operated were between 2 to 5 years and 6 to 16
years with the mean age of 2 5years. Otolaryngology, general surgery,
orthopedic and urology were the surgeries done in this study. Among the
operated children 24.1% developed post-operative complications and there was
4.58% mortality rate.
Conclusion: Pediatric surgical care in rural hospitals is very important
as among especially life serving procedures in rural regions. Improvement of
pediatric surgical care and availability of pediatric nurses’ specialist is
highly recommended.
Keywords: Paediatric Surgery, Paediatric Nursing Care, Paediatric Advocate, Infrastructure, Infection, Optimal Outcome.