Our Story
Uplifting the lives of children needing life changing surgery
Launched in May 2015, Surgeons for Little Lives is a registered non-profit organisation, with a powerful commitment to saving the lives of sick children.
We are making it possible for very sick children and their families to receive a standard of care that matches the standard of skill of their surgeons.
A Joint Effort
Surgeons for Little Lives is run by a small group of Paediatric Surgeons, and ordinary people, passionate about uplifting the lives of less fortunate children needing life changing surgery.
It was started with the overriding objective of raising the level of care given to patients in the Paediatric Surgery wards in state hospitals, in the Greater Gauteng area, to world class standards.
Our chairman is currently Professor Jerome Loveland, Head of Paediatric Surgery at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, and The University of the Witwatersrand.
The Challenge
South African doctors are among the best in the world – but, through circumstances beyond their control, they can’t always provide the standard of care that they would like.
Unfortunately, because available resources are extremely limited, the level of care available to our little patients and their families in the large, over burdened state hospitals, is very basic.
This means it takes longer for children to recover after surgery and complications are more likely to set in.
Our Primary Objective
To raise money to fund specific projects which will improve the care given to the children served by the Department of Paediatric Surgery in Greater Gauteng and its surrounding provinces.
Our current, and most urgent, projects include:
- A new Paediatric Surgical out patient clinic, incorporating a parental sleep over facility.
- A dedicated operating theatre for Paediatric burns patients.
- An outside playground for recovering Paediatric Surgery patients.
- Providing recovering burns patients with Expression Art opportunities.
All of these projects are based at CHBAH.
To date we have also funded the repairs to essential Paediatric Surgical equipment as well as providing other vital equipment to the Paediatric Surgical ward at CMJAH.
Our Secondary Objective
- To improve the care, management and treatment of Paediatric Surgical and Paediatric burns patients.
- To better support the caregivers and families of these patients.
- To improve the facilities where medical care takes place, where the hospitals (CHBAH and CMJAH) are unable to do so themselves.
- To contribute to and encourage high quality research in the field of Paediatric Surgery that leads to improvement of Paediatric Surgical health care in the public sector.
- To assist the State hospitals with their record keeping and procurement processes.
- To purchase new capital equipment and some vital disposable items.
- To assist with appropriate and effective service delivery and patient care.
- To contribute to the development of Paediatric Surgery at the University of the Witwatersrand and the development of Paediatric Surgery training in Gauteng with respect to both local doctors and those from the rest of Africa.