SIGN Nail: Creating Equality of Fracture Care Thoughout the World

How would I be treated if I broke my leg?

This depends on where in the world you are when this happens to you, and how much money you have available for treatment.  In the USA we fix long bone fractures of the thigh/femur and shin/tibia with intramedullary nails put in with assistance of x-ray in the operating room.  This allows patients to mobilize soon after surgery.

Current treatment of these fractures in the developing world, including Zimbabwe, most often involves being placed in traction and lying in bed for 2-3 months while the fractures heal. This can lead to a number of complications including failure of the fracture to heal or healing in a poor position, bedsores, pneumonia, and blood clots. It ties up hospital resources and leaves patients unable to support their families for months.  Unfortunately, these injuries are very common in Zimbabwe, with overloaded vehicles in poor condition traveling at high speeds on neglected roads.

We hope to establish a program at Karanda Hospital in Zimbabwe and possibly the main trauma hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe to treat long bone fractures with modern techniques.  The program would use the SIGN Nail system developed by the non-profit, SIGN Fracture Care International, which was founded by Lewis Zirkle, MD out of Richland, Washington.  You can learn more about them at:

(http://www.signfracturecare.org/).

The goal of SIGN is to create global equality in fracture care.  The SIGN system is designed to allow the surgeon to place the implant in a fractured limb in developing and austere settings without the use of x-ray (c-arm).  This is important because intraoperative x-ray is not widely available outside of developed countries.

With the SIGN system patients can be mobilized the day after surgery!  There are now over 200 SIGN hospitals in more than 50 developing countries.  Over 95,000 patients have been treated with SIGN since 1999!  After pre and post operative x-rays are emailed back to SIGN for quality control, SIGN provides new nails somewhere between free and the $100 per nail cost, depending on the hospitals financial situation.  This is a steep discount from the >$1500 retail value.

Our hope is to start 1-2 programs in Zimbabwe, and train in their surgeons while we are serving there over 5 months.  

The start up cost with 1-2 sets of surgical equipment and 100 nails is $15,000-25,000 per hospital.  This is a lot of money. We are praying for provision and guidance for raising support for this project. This equipment and surgical education will greatly improve the lives of patients and their families.

If you are interested in supporting this tax-deductible project, contact us or go directly to www.signfracturecare.org and click on the yellow donate button.  This will take you to a page where you can make a donation using a credit card or a PayPal account.  There is a spot under “Notes” where you can earmark you donation for the Karanda Zimbabwe Project.