The conventional stereotypic portrayal of Africa by the West is an impoverished continent ravaged by war and disease. However, it can be explicitly be inferred that Africa is not only the cradle of mankind civilization or the pot of the mostly Earth’s natural wealth, but the Black continent is also the site of beholding world’s ancient and medieval scientific practices, discoveries, and advancements.
Advancements in the scope of revolutionary medical procedures such as an awake craniotomy, a surgical term for creating a temporary opening by removing part of the skull in order to carry out activity on the brain of the living being with the objective of healing an ailment or correcting an issue, such as removing brain tumors.
A craniotomy is brain surgery and a type of neurosurgical technique. Awake craniotomy specifically refers to performing this surgery while the patient is still fully conscious i.e. awake and not under general anesthesia. It is done in this way to reduce the risk of potential brain damage to the patient when carrying out such a delicate operation, as the neurosurgeon is able to effectively monitor the patient’s neurological state by the way of live feedback and key cues as she can communicate the effects, such as the loss of a movement in a limb or the loss the ability to speak or count when the doctor manipulates a certain part of her brain.
An awake craniotomy can also be applied to surgical operations, where tissues causing epileptic seizures are removed and according to experts in the field, the technique has made removing brain tumors, whether benign or malignant, safer and much less a medical taboo than before.
Brain Surgery by Traditional Healers in Kenya
This medical advancement and prowess is available in Kenya. Neocolonial subliminal messaging in the western media aside, perhaps one should expect such a medical feat from Kenya, given the existence of an old cultural medicinal practice or traditional craniotomy by the ababari emetwe (surgeons of this traditional procedure) of the Kisii or South Nyanza ethnic group within the Bantu community in Kenya,dating as far back as the earliest passing records of it are from European colonial observers in the 1950s.
The surgery practiced by the Kisii in Kenya was typically performed to cure chronic head pain after trauma to the head and has been documented to have 5% fatality rate, following years-long observations of the medicine men’s practice in the 20th century.
In recent times, the first awake craniotomy was done in Kenya on October 15, 2015, at Nakuru Level 5 Hospital. The historical event covered by Medical Media Services was carried out by a team of surgeons led by Dr. Samuel Njiru, the locally-trained neurosurgeon at Kenyatta National Hospital and in collaboration with the University of Toronto and Egerton University at the Nakuru County Referral Hospital.
Also, in 2018, Dr. Njiru championed a team at the same hospital in Kenya to perform a series of awake craniotomies on four different patients.
The most recent procedure was on October 26, 2020, when the practice was carried out for the first time at the Nairobi Hospital, and led by locally-trained (University of Nairobi) neurosurgeon and the Chairman of the Neurological Society of Kenya, Dr. Mubashir Mahmood Qureshi along with Dr. Aamir Qureshi.
The Nairobi Hospital is equipped with well-trained specialists and world-class technology such as Intra-operative Ultrasound evaluation, Neuronavigation for brain mapping and Neuromonitoring technology.
Although initially, the surgery was mainly done in private hospitals not necessarily accessible to people of modest finances in the country, it appears that the medical procedure is also gradually becoming more available in public hospitals.
