Our travels brought us today to Mombasa Coast Provisional General Hospital, one of the first hospitals in Kenya, and it is today one of the largest public hospitals in the country. It used to simply be Coast Provisional General Hospital, and it would account for patients in all counties surrounding Mombasa County, however, when the Kenyan constitution was changed in 2010 to decentralize each county to give them more autonomy, it just became the main hospital for Mombasa county only.
We met with Dr. Abdi, a general surgeon with experience in laparoscopy, who had a case scheduled today for us to view. Unfortunately, due to a lack of CO2 gas, which is essential, the procedure could not be done when we arrived. The gas never arrived, so it was canceled. We instead watched him perform several endoscopic procedures, and interviewed him for information regarding minimally invasive surgery at Coast General. Coast General has several surgeons and residents who are experienced in laparoscopy, and a dedicated Minimally Invasive Surgery Center where it is performed regularly. They also have a deal with Medtronic and Covidien, where they were supplied with a Laparoscopy Tower, in exchange for an agreement to buy their surgical equipment. But the hospital still struggles with problems such as equipment shortages, which prevented today's case from happening, and cost and availability of more specialized devices, which we have learned are the biggest barriers to carrying out minimally invasive surgery in the public sector in Kenya.
We then spoke with the CEO of the hospital, Dr. Iqbal Khandwalla, a general surgeon-turned CEO of the hospital, who told us about how the hospital had been rapidly upgrading its facilities over the past few years, with care given to the minimally invasive surgery ward, as well as oncology and cardiology. It was very interesting to see the contrast between a public hospital in a more rural setting such as Makueni County, and a very populated city like Mombasa. Furthermore, we were referred to the residents enrolled in the COSECSA program for interviews, which will take place tomorrow when we revisit the hospital. After departing Coast General, we had lunch in a small restaurant in town, we had chicken, fish, and rice. All of the food came on a single platter, so we all had to just spoon it right off of the platter, and it all tasted incredible.
We then decided to tour Fort Jesus and the Mombasa Old Town, since we still had time in the day. Fort Jesus is a fort built by the Portugeuse in the late 1500's. It was partly made from carving out a coral reef, so all of the walls are about a meter thick, and most of it is indeed made from coral! Some expansions added stone to the structure later on, as the fort was later taken over by different people, including the Arabs, and then the English, before being made into a museum in modern day.
After seeing the Fort, we toured the Mombasa Old Town. This is possibly the oldest city in Africa, it was used as a trading port during the Portuguese colonial times, with its architecture very much inspired by both an Arabic and European style. Indeed, the design of the streets and buildings felt very european, with some Arabic influence. It also did not seem incredibly touristy, as it was still mostly populated by locals, which was very nice and refreshing to see. The Old Town was very nice to walk through, we saw some kids playing soccer (or football if you're not American...), people swimming in the harbor, and the Hotel Africa, the first hotel in Africa.
It was a very enjoyable day, we had a very productive and enriching experience at Coast General Hospital, and then a very interesting historical one at the Old Town. And yet there is still even more to see in Mombasa!