When Lee Jae-heon, an orthopedic surgeon and World Friends Korea volunteer, arrived in the northern town of Arusha, Tanzania three years ago, he was the only orthopedic specialist in the town.

In the country with an average of one such specialist per 3.5-5 million people (equal to Seoul having just two or three orthopedic surgeons), the conditions were too poor even for basic surgery on broken arms or legs. Traffic accidents were frequent there, causing many injuries.

Dispatched to Mount Meru Hospital surrounded by scenic African landscapes and national parks, such as the Serengeti and Mount Kilimanjaro, Lee found the place impossible to perform any kind of surgery.

“Surgical instruments were all covered with rust. So I had to clean the rust first,” Lee told The Korea Herald.

“Local residents and doctors all felt the need to improve surgery infrastructure because they frequently saw tragic cases in which people became disabled or have to have their arms or legs amputated because they couldn’t receive proper treatment on time.”

That’s when he drew up a plan to make a decent operating theater equipped with clean surgical instruments.

“There were two missions ― building a theater and filling the room with surgical instruments,” he said. 

But achieving the two missions was not easy in a country where financial assistance and resources from foreign countries often end up in the wrong pockets.

Lee bought surgical instruments, accessed the electric grid and contacted architects and constructors directly.

But funding was a problem in the beginning, so he had to use part of his monthly salary for the project. Thanks to financial support from his colleagues and the dean of School of Medicine of Ajou University in South Korea, he was able to turn the old room of Mount Meru Hospital into a surgery room.

He later was able to fill the room with clean surgical instruments with extra assistance from the Korea International Cooperation Agency later.

It took two years to complete the project.

“It may not be a big deal for big companies who build hospitals in developing countries, but for an individual, it was quite a huge project,” he said.

The list of patients waiting for surgeries grew longer and longer.

He recalled using new surgical instruments to operate on a male HIV patient with a leg broken from a car accident.

“It was a risky and difficult surgery because my gloves were ripped during the surgery,” he said.

In Tanzania, those who receive surgery are lucky because most of patients don’t get proper treatment right after accidents.

In another case, he had to amputate the seriously wounded right arm of a 5-year-old boy who received treatment too late.

“It was really tragic because his arm could have regained normal function if he was given proper treatment early,” he said.

“The severed arm felt heavier than anything else that day.”

However, amputation is not the worst thing that can happen, especially if the patient can go on to live a healthy life, he added.

“The boy became healthy and was the first outpatient greeting me in the morning,” he said.

Orthopedic practice in the hospital has been continued by his Korean successor and another Tanzanian medical student being trained to become an orthopedic specialist.

Besides building an operating room by himself, Lee contributed health articles to the English news daily Arusha Times to provide basic medical information about sickness from altitude, snake or dog bites and other diseases.

He came back to Korea in January ― too early to see results of the surgeries conducted in the operating theater.

“I heard from my successor last Friday that he carried out the 50th surgery. I was really happy to hear that,” said Lee.

He contained his undaunted volunteer spirit in a book of the journals and short essays that he had kept for two years and half in Tanzania. The book titled “The Dream at the Age of 30 in Africa” was published on April 5.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)