Andrew spent two weeks in Uganda, working with the UN in the capital, Kampala, and in Mityana, a town in the central region where murders, rape and other violent crime are prevalent.

During that fortnight he carried out 37 surgical procedures, involving roadside trauma – even using his own money to treat a hit and run victim – burns, assaults, and gunshot and stab wounds.

Andrew is an anaesthetic OPD (operating department practitioner), based mainly in Morriston’s burns and plastics unit and theatres, and a clinical tutor at Swansea University’s College of Medicine.

While out in Uganda he utilised skills he learnt during training but doesn’t use in his everyday work. But he also did five Caesarean sections – something he had no previous experience of – all of them under close supervision.

Andrew said: “A lot of the patients had torn uteruses or placentas but they couldn’t get from their village to the hospital.

“They don’t have transport so you have to go out to them. We did some of the C-sections in the villages, but there were others we did in the hospital.”

It was not always straightforward even when the C-sections were carried out in Mityana Hospital, where Andrew was based.

“Once we had the lights go out mid-operation. The generator failed and it was pitch black. You literally couldn’t see anything.

“Luckily I had a head torch in my pocket. One of the nurses put it on my head and I had to work with that. It was crazy.

“There would be a legal battle if something like that happened in this country, but it’s a part of life over there.”

It was, Andrew said, a very different world to the one he was used to working at Morriston.

“A 21-year-old lad was knocked down by a motorbike and died. But because the mortuary roof was damaged we had to do the post mortem in a room in his house.

“Another time I was told not to treat one guy found at the roadside after a hit and run accident, because he had been drinking. They said he was unsafe but I couldn’t just leave him.

“I bought the local anaesthetic and sutures and drugs to treat him out of my own pocket. Not to have done it would have been inhumane.”

Last year Andrew made his first trip to Uganda, where he mainly treated burns victims and gave talks on fire prevention. He also made recommendations to hospital officials about waste segregation.

He said he was pleased to find during his self-financed second trip that these recommendations, aimed at reducing infection, were being implemented and starting to make a difference.

Returning to the safe and well-stocked surroundings of Morriston Hospital was, he said, something of a culture shock.

Andrew is planning a third visit to Uganda, by the end of this year if he can.

“Hopefully next time I will be able to take a full surgical, anaesthetic and theatre team with me.

“Some of my colleagues have expressed an interest in going. Even if they could only come out for a week it would make an incredible difference.”

This news release was issued by Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board - http://www.abm.wales.nhs.uk/.