Stephen Appiah, Yvonne Nelson, Majid Michel, others join Vitamilk Ghana's 'The Operation Walk' campaign

Popular Ghanaian brand Vitamilk Ghana has embarked on one of its many projects dubbed “The Operation Walk” campaign under the Vitamilk Child Malnutrition Foundation.

The intervention, as part of Vitamilk Ghana’s flagship social responsibility to give back to the Ghanaian society started in 2016 involving a collaboration between a team of astute surgeons from abroad to conduct free hip replacement surgery for Ghanaians suffering from joint arthritis at the St. Joseph Orthopedic Hospital. 

 A hip replacement surgery is a medical procedure performed to replace an individual’s damaged hip joint with artificial ones (known as a prosthesis).

Despite the fact that joint arthritis is most common among the old with ages between 60-80, however according to Prof Akosah “About two per cent of children born in this country have abnormal haemoglobin and there are a lot of our people with sickle cell disease which develop into avascular necrosis of the hip joint and that makes their walking imbalanced and the only thing you can do is to replace that head of the femoral through transplant”.

Dr Seth Greenky, the Co-Executive Director and founder of Operation Walk said that this is the most difficult hip replacement cases experienced surgeons face and even with their laudable experience, it takes some level of skills to be able to carry it out.

Yet despite all odds, this year’s event saw 55 successful hip replacement surgeries been carried out with 90% success rate without complications.

At this years’ event, among the many to have already had their hip replacement surgeries done, is Nana Yaa Konadu.

Amidst tears she expressed how painful it was for her to walk prior the surgery and how the pain from her joint arthritis prevented her from sleeping well at night. Recalling her story she said, “After the surgery I can now walk, no sleepless nights”.

She could not hide her joy as she expressed gratitude to the doctors and nurses and the organizers for the kind gesture.

The operation walk campaign was graced by Vitamilk brand ambassadors; Stephen Appiah, Yvonne Nelson and Majid Michel.

Prof Akosah concluded the event by urging Ghanaians that despite this years’ challenges, Ghanaians should take advantage of this initiative and hopefully next year will see more surgeries performed.