History of hand surgery in Kuwait

 
The late Dr. Kamal Helmi from Egypt started hand surgery in Kuwait 1975. This was in the old “SulaibiKhat Orthopedic Hospital”.  It was a one-man department. He had a rotating registrar for a period of one month, so no one had enough experience to share the heavy load.
It was a very busy department with lots of international visitors staying for several weeks at the time.  Professor Lamb, Dr. Pulvertaft, and the late Godina.
In 1980 the first (and only so far) hand surgery conference was held in Kuwait, and there was an International participation from all around the world.
The Orthopedic service was transferred to the Al-Razi Hospital, which was opened in 1983.  This Department served all of Kuwait until 1984 when another department was opened in Mubarak Al- Kabir hospital, which was run by Dr. Karl Hagert from Sweden.
The two departments covered Kuwait till 1990 that had a population of 1.2 million at that time.
After the liberation of Kuwait Dr. Hagert was unable to return to Kuwait and for a year and a half Dr.Helmi ran the service with Dr. Dr. Foad Rabea, and Dr. Husam Basheer. Dr. Helmi died in early 1992.
The Department grew in number of doctors and the department has 8 permanent hand surgeons.
Hand surgery in Kuwait was always in liaison with the department of plastic surgery. Back in the eighties there was an agreement with lubjiana University that a consultant plastic-hand surgeon would stay for six months in Kuwait, and this lasted for several years, amongst those was the late Godina.
We have a busy department, on average we see about 500 patients in the OPD weekly, divided over six clinics, twice a week, and an average of 55 cases are operated weekly.