Current Challenges of Plastic Surgical Care in Sub-Saharan Africa (Maputo, Mozambique)

BACKGROUND:Limited data exist on plastic surgery practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of this study was to characterize the spectrum of disease and operative procedures at a teaching hospital in Maputo, Mozambique to help understand the challenges of providing care for the local providers and to provide contextual relevance for training through partnerships. METHODS:A mixed-methods approach was utilized to perform an ongoing needs assessment. A retrospective review was performed of plastic surgery operative records, ward admissions records, and death records in a tertiary-care hospital in Maputo, Mozambique for the period January 2015 to December 2015. RESULTS:Limited resources (equipment, block-time, personnel, and perioperative services) were observed. The most common diagnoses for the 455 patients evaluated were burns (44%) and neoplasms (17%). Congenital abnormalities accounted for only 1% of the patient diagnoses. Of the 408 procedures performed, the majority were skin grafts (43%) and skin excisions (31%). Sepsis from burns accounted for 70% of documented deaths (14/20). The mean number of days to skin grafting for inpatients was 53 days. CONCLUSION:We observed a large burden of burns and skin graft procedures at a public referral teaching hospital in Mozambique. Our findings provide contextual relevance to help focus public health efforts and improve plastic surgery training and practices.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.