Dreamland Mission Hospital – Operating Theatre

The first new operating theatre at Dreamland Mission Hospital is now complete. After a long journey of fundraising for a new building and equipment, it is incredibly exciting to see the new theatre installed. 

In May 2024, over £90,000 was raised towards the new equipment.  Thanks to generous support from medical aid internationals and teams in the USA, the money stretched to be able to source a huge amount of equipment. The new theatre has a special operating table that has multiple attachments, allowing for orthopaedic surgery, women’s health surgery, life-saving abdominal surgery and more. There is a new anaesthetic machine, theatre lights, suction, diathermy machine and two fully equipped recovery areas. On top of this, there are 10 new sets of surgical equipment, and all the sterilisation equipment required to run an excellent service. 

Our objective was to allow this rural and poor community access to life-saving surgery that would otherwise not be available to them. This has been particularly beneficial for pregnant mothers who needed emergency C-sections, as the previous setup meant that if there was already an operation underway in theatre, they had to make an unsafe journey to another hospital, sometimes more than an hour away, or have their C-section in an unsuitable room. This actually happened even while the new equipment was being installed: a child was in the theatre for limb-saving surgery, and a mother arrived, losing blood and needing urgent surgery. We simply did not have the space to perform both surgeries in the operating theatre.

Thanks to the amazing effort of all the Beyond Finance and Dreamland Mission communities, this will no longer be the case. The new setup will save and change lives going forward, as the new theatre means we can cater for women’s surgery, as well as children having limb-saving surgery. The new baby unit is on the doorstep of the theatre, so there is a clear and safe path for mothers and their new little babies. We anticipate over 1,000 surgeries being carried out in 2025, with numbers increasing into 2026. The first surgery in the new theatre will take place in February 2025, after the equipment has been fully safety checked and all staff trained. 

We are so grateful to everyone who ran, walked, cycled, hopped and skipped to raise these funds. You have truly changed the life of this rural Kenya community and much improved the working conditions for all our staff.