In a cold winter day in November 2018, the Swedish-African Neurosurgical Collaboration (SANC) was founded at an open workshop in connection with the Swedish Neurosurgical Association's annual meeting in Stockholm. The organization's overall goal was to create an interprofessional collaboration with one or more countries and hospitals in Africa, in order to train neurosurgeons in microsurgical techniques and improve perioperative care for neurosurgical patients.

SANC's work was initiated through a first exploratory phase, in which members of the board carried out trips to create networks and evaluate suitable partners at four hospitals in West Africa (Ghana / Nigeria), which serve as a pilot region for the project.

It was decided on an initial collaboration with the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, as conditions there in the form of access to basic surgical resources, intensive care and adequate local skills. In addition, the local political situation was judged to be stable, and logistical conditions such as access to an international airport existed.

The first mission with volunteers was completed in March 2019 to Enugu. Nigeria. Then two neurosurgeons and four nurses traveled to work with the local team for two weeks. Daily lectures focusing on neurosurgical nursing were also included in the mission. At the same time, about thirty nurses in the ward and intensive care unit underwent a two-week course in neurosurgical nursing.

In November 2019, a planned mission to Enugu was canceled due to repairs on the airport's runway. The mission was redirected to Ghana at short notice. A team of two neurosurgeons, an ear doctor, a surgical nurse and three nurses spent two weeks at Greater Accra Regional Hospital in Ghana's capital Accra. 

SANC's goals are long-term interprofessional solutions, which we hope will create positive side effects for other local activities and strengthen healthcare in the target regions. Through networking in West Africa, we hope to be able to export the concept to more target regions for validation purposes. The value of driving this development is enormous, given the enormous deficit of neurosurgical care that large parts of the world have. We also believe that this is a collaborative project that strengthens neurosurgery in Sweden with a unique collaboration between different clinics and professional groups with a common goal.

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