DPC physician organizes medical supply donation to Senegalese hospital

Ismael Tamba, DO, MPH, a family medicine physician at Duke Primary Care Wake Forest, was born in Senegal and has made many return trips over the 25 years he has lived in the United States. He has seen and experienced first-hand the tragic inability of providers in Senegal to provide care for those in need due to a lack of basic medical supplies.

Over the past year, Tamba – along with his brother – created a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) to facilitate the provision of medical supplies to the people of his country. Less than two months ago, their organization successfully organized the donation and delivery of 2.7 tons of medical supplies to Hospital Fann in Dakar, Senegal.

Tamba was on the ground in Dakar on Jan. 12, 2017, as pallets of the airlifted supplies were delivered to the hospital. Supplies included gloves, masks, bandages, syringes, Iodine, IV tubes, kits and fluids, bed pans, walkers, crutches and many more much needed items.

"Having had the privilege of treating patients through Duke Primary Care, and becoming aware of Duke's commitment to global health that includes the provision of excess medical equipment, I realized I was in a position in which I had to give back as much as I could,"

Tamba says. "I knew I had to do something after meeting with the secretary of health in Senegal and visiting the local hospitals."

Tamba was able to work with REMEDY at Duke, as well as AFYA Foundation, to get the needed supplies donated. Airlink LIFT transported the items. REMEDY at Duke is a volunteer-run program within Duke University Health System that is committed to repurposing medical supplies and equipment that have outlived their usefulness here and distributing them via Duke-affiliated and other non-profit global health agencies.

"I have a passion for recycling and finding ways that these usable surplus supplies can be donated to medically underserved areas. It's enormously gratifying to know that these materials will serve an incredibly useful purpose for the people in Senegal who need them," says John Lohnes, MHS, PA-C, an orthopaedic physician assistant at Duke, who started REMEDY in 2004 after seeing the medical supply needs in Nicaragua during a global health project he participated in there.

Today the volunteer team at REMEDY at Duke collects the equivalent of four tractor trailer loads of surplus supplies every year and facilitates more than 20 donations a year. They range from small donations that could fit into someone's personal bag, to several pallets of airlifted supplies for large donations like the recent one to Senegal.

"I found it very rewarding to provide and enable care in a very different way," says Tamba. "It reinforces a sense of gratitude for the things I can do for patients every day. It motivates me to help make a difference."

At the hospitals Tamba visited, patients often had to try to bring their own gloves, iodine, scalpels, and other supplies. In many cases, they went without needed care because they couldn't provide those resources.

Tamba says his colleagues within Duke Primary Care were very excited to learn of his work and many have asked to contribute to future efforts or even possibly participate in medical outreach trips to Senegal with him. For now, Tamba is committed to helping on an annual basis in some way and hopes to coordinate a medical mission trip in the future.

"Every time I travel to Senegal, I try to visit as many hospitals as possible to learn as much as I can about the needs there," he says. "Getting supplies delivered to the right places and in the right hands is essential to improvement."