Ghana is a country built on agriculture. According to Statista, around 39.49% of employees in Ghana are active in agriculture. With more than a third of the country involved in such a physically intensive form of labor, hernias are among the most common ailments suffered in Ghana. According to the National Library of Health, nearly 10% of all surgeries in Ghana are for hernia treatment. With unaffordable and inaccessible treatment, healing hernias in Ghana can be considered a priority in smaller communities and villages.

With such high rates of hernia complications and operations, Robert Hicks, a doctor from Northamptonshire, U.K., decided to do something to aid in healing hernias in Ghana. In 2011, Hicks made his first trip over to Carpenter, a small village in Ghana, where he and his team of four medical staff would collectively perform more than 250 hernia repairs in nine days. In 2018 Hicks and his wife, Dr. Jo Inchley, would go on to start Hernia International Carpenter, a charity dedicated to healing hernias in the country.

Robert Hicks’ Story

Hicks was raised in Newport, Wales. He would go on to receive surgical training at St Thomas’s Hospital in London in 1989 before finding himself at Northampton General Hospital. After his trip to Ghana in 2011 and the subsequent founding of his charity in 2018, Hicks partnered with Canadian and Ghanaian charities to found Leyaata Hospital in Carpenter in 2022. Hicks and his team continue to organize trips to Ghana with teams of volunteers providing aid to those seeking medical help in the treatment of hernias and other conditions. In 2024, Hicks was awarded MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his work in Ghana and his charity’s continued aid to the disadvantaged.

Hernia International Carpenter

The early days of Hernia International Carpenter (HIC) consisted of a trip to Ghana once a year for Hicks and his team of volunteers. With their trips being personally funded, their supplies generously donated and their window of operation just two weeks, Hicks and his team made it their mission to perform as many surgeries as possible within their limited time. Eventually, the HIC team partnered with the Ghana Health Team to travel to Carpenter, where they performed over 250 hernia repair operations in 2019.

The aftermath of their work led to them being invited to a durbar (a traditional event for the royal court to meet and greet their people), in which they were celebrated by and with local chiefs and queens. In November 2023, Hicks set out to Ghana to perform his work for the first time inside of Leyaata Hospital. While this trip did have the main objective of performing surgery, the HIC team’s secondary goal was to provide education and training to the hospital staff, ensuring that Carpenter remained in good hands while Hicks was in the U.K.

Wrap Up

Hicks’s work is an example of the progress that can be made to help the disadvantaged. Hicks noted in an interview with the Argus that he could see the impact his team was having on the community of Carpenter. “Year-on-year, we would see an improvement in the living conditions of the community,” Hicks said. “And an improvement in the health of the children.” Hicks has made it clear that while he is honored to receive recognition for his work, he wants his team to get their due credit, noting that he could not have achieved what HIC had achieved without them.

– Beau Sansom
Photo: Flickr