Based in Edinburgh and Dundee, as well as London, Kids Operating Rooms is a global initiative centred around putting life-saving tools in life-saving hands. No surgeon should ever have to operate under torchlight – often using the flashlight on their phones – with broken equipment or crumbling ceilings, and yet many in nations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America are forced to do so. This is even worse when it comes to surgeries on children, as adult-sized instruments are usually the only ones available. Determined to put an end to this and create the capacity for children to gain access to the safe surgeries they deserve, Kids Operating Rooms goes beyond just providing the space and the equipment for children’s surgeries, it also delivers operating rooms complete with distinct animal graphics to offer those children about to undergo surgery a colourful distraction and a sense of reassurance. Many children are not under anaesthesia when they enter the operating room, and these designs help mitigate some of their nerves. These designs have become a big part of what the company represents: hope and safety. Both of these areas are cornerstones of this operation and fuel the transformations Kids Operating Rooms nurtures in hospitals all over the world. The process begins simply by identifying a hospital that either does not have a paediatric operating room or has one in dire need of an upgrade. The team here then liaise directly with the local surgeon to find out exactly what equipment and supplies they need for the children in their care. With more than 3,000 pieces of state-of-the-art equipment available to ship from its Centre of Global Operations in Dundee, Kids Operating Rooms can get whatever the hospital needs to it as quickly as possible. Once the equipment arrives, the experts behind the company will be there to meet it, and they assist local staff in unloading, setting up, and commissioning this equipment. At the same time, a separate team of artwork installers arrive for the animal wall decorations mentioned above, resulting in a whole new space. The amazing support provided by the company does not end here, as it keeps in touch with all of those hospitals it has worked in as a way to offer any support needed with maintenance and replacement parts, ensuring that high-quality children’s surgeries can be carried out well into the future. Touching on the prolific impact this has had, a spokesperson from one hospital said: “We were using our phone lights to carry out some procedures, which made surgery difficult. We now have three state-of-the-art operating rooms.” Of course, the people whose lives these spaces and the cutting-edge equipment within them have impacted most are the children and their parents. There are countless examples of real-life stories relating to the selfless work Kids Operating Rooms does, including one of a mother who walked for ten hours from her home in rural Malawi to the nearest hospital to save the life of her nine-month-old son, who had fallen whilst playing outside and pierced his chest with a nail. With no ambulances or local clinics, she had to act. Arriving at Zomba Central Hospital, which had recently been kitted out with a full paediatric operating room by the team at Kids Operating Rooms, her son was rushed into surgery and a life-saving operation was performed on him by surgeons who had all of the tools they needed to make his procedure a success. Today, the boy is recovering well, playing, smiling, and growing stronger every day. The outcome likely would have been much different were it not for Kids Operating Rooms, underpinning its massive impact. Every child deserves the opportunity to be able to grow up healthy and safe. By providing some of the world’s poorest regions with all of the rooms and equipment they need to perform life-saving procedures on children, Kids Operating Rooms is making this a possibility. As such, it is an honour to recognise it in this programme. Contact: Jessica Lechmere Company: Kids Operating Rooms Web Address: https://www.kidsor.org/ There can be few things in this world more despairing than having the knowledge and skill to be able to save a child’s life but not the equipment. It does not bear thinking about for many, but this is the frustrating reality for the talented surgeons in many of the more than 30 countries where Kids Operating Rooms works. This is why the company liaises directly with health ministries and local surgeons to turn operating rooms and other spaces in hospitals into areas dedicated to children’s surgery. We take a closer look at the remarkable impact this has had below. Best Global Paediatric Surgical Initiative 2025
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