At the beginning of January 2019, the FIXT initiation visit took place in Sierra Leone. The visit was to train Nurses and Medical Officers at Connaught Hospital in Freetown on research skills and specific training on the Ilizarov external fixation frame which will be used during the study. Training took place over 1 week and was delivered by Statisticians and a team from Leeds Teaching Hospitals who delivered the Ilizarov training.
The staff who attended the training from Connaught Hospital were a mixture of nurses on the wards as well as staff from the emergency department and theatre. Over the 2 training courses over 70 members of hospital staff attended.
During our visit we met with the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences and the finance team. We visited a number of private hospitals in Freetown and met with an engineering firm, FINIC to discuss the possibility of manufacturing equipment in country to an international standard to create sustainability beyond the study.
The study has now started and we are now into the after arm of the study.
The research was commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research using Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
