Help Provide Life-Saving Neurosurgical Supplies in Tanzania

We are starting this fund to help doctors in Tanzania provide lifesaving surgery that parents and families forego because they cannot afford to pay for medical equipment necessary to perform surgeries. After making numerous annual trips to Tanzania, CU Neurosurgery residents have started this fund to help our fellow doctors in Tanzania treat the dozens of children needlessly suffering at our partner hospital Mohimbili National Hospital (MOI).

Each donation collected here will make a direct and meaningful impact to a patient’s life. For example, a young child in Tanzania with hydrocephalus (fluid buildup in the brain) must wait weeks or months in a hospital until the child’s family can afford to pay the cost of a shunt (valve and catheter). If the family cannot afford the shunt, the child could die from the condition. $35 USD is all it takes to pay for the shunt. After witnessing multiple parents struggle to make these payments for their sick children in February 2025, we created this fund to give Tanzanian doctors the ability to offer surgery to patients who can’t pay.

Since 2007, the University of Colorado Department of Neurosurgery has partnered with the Neurosurgery Department at Muhimbili University Orthopedic Institute in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (MOI), sending CU faculty and residents to help develop neurosurgical specialty care and training in Tanzania. This has been as much a meaningful learning experience for CU faculty and residents as it is for MOI doctors.

Each year, neurosurgery faculty and residents from CU and MOI come together in Dar es Salaam to co-host an International Neuro-Oncology, Neurovascular, and Neurocritical Care Symposium. This conference includes didactic lectures, practical sessions, and live operating room demonstrations. MOI neurosurgery faculty and residents also visit Colorado each year for four-to-six-week observerships at CU to assist in their development into independently practicing clinicians in Tanzania.

Tanzania’s MOI neurosurgery team often treats traumatic injuries, intracranial hemorrhages, and hydrocephalus. Shunts (which are used to treat hydrocephalus) and external ventricular drains (to relieve pressure in the brain from trauma or bleeds) are imperative life-saving equipment. The CU Neurosurgery residents are working with US suppliers of this equipment to secure supplies at cost and deliver this equipment on our trips to Tanzania.

We understand that there are many charities out there to choose from. This is a unique opportunity as there is absolutely no administrative overhead and we are the ones coordinating with our friends and contacts at MOI performing the surgeries and treating the patients directly in need. We will be in constant communication with our friends at MOI to discuss where these funds will make the biggest impact. This is an opportunity to make a big difference with a small effort.

Thank you for your generosity and we are excited to continue our strong collaboration to improve neurosurgical care in Tanzania and beyond.

The goal of this fund is sustainability. Please consider making a monthly recurring contribution. Even a $15 or $25 monthly donation can change the lives of multiple families each year.

https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/neurosurgery/education-and-training/global-neurosurgery