1. Physician With A Mission; Making A Difference: Luc de Clerck's dedication helps
save lives in Burkina Faso
By Daniel Del’Re
6 October 2006
Luc de Clerck was looking for a simple and effective solution. It's what he needed to
save lives.
A military parade in the African nation of Burkina Faso in 2003 left 250 onlookers --
including 100 children -- with severe burns after participants carrying tins of flaming
petroleum on their heads accidentally spilled the liquid on themselves and the crowd.
The Belgian military asked de Clerck, a former commando and military burn specialist,
to respond.
“Blow into this tube,” de Clerck told his patients. Most had burns over 80% of their
bodies and suffered lung damage from smoke inhalation. Hospitals in wealthy countries
have devices to help burn victims breathe. But poverty-ridden Burkina Faso has almost
no medical infrastructure.
So De Clerck innovated: he stuck a rubber tube into a plastic container filled with water
and asked his patients to blow into it. The resistance provided by the water forced their
lungs to expand and inhale more oxygen than they could on their own.
“In Europe we are used to modern techniques,” de Clerck, 40, said in a recent interview.
“In Africa, we had only the most simple and basic materials.”
Through a combination of medical expertise and ingenuity, de Clerck and another
Belgian doctor, Michel van Brussel, saved the life of every burn victim. They showed
that humanitarian efforts depend as much on the creativity and optimism of those on the
ground as on a vision of changing the world.
De Clerck combines broad vision and tactical grit in one person. His day-to-day disaster
management skills prevented Burkina Faso's national parade from turning into a
national disaster. Since then, de Clerck has taken it upon himself to assemble financing
and supplies for a permanent burn clinic in Burkina Faso that opened in February to
provide free treatment.
De Clerck became familiar with conditions in Africa while serving as a Belgian military
officer. In the early 1990s, he was part of a contingent that evacuated Europeans from
Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Somalia amid bloody conflicts. After

2. leaving the military, de Clerck worked as a respiratory specialist and disaster manager
in the intensive care unit of a military burn center in Brussels. When Burkina Faso asked
Belgium for help, de Clerck was a natural choice to lead a humanitarian effort.
His experience in Africa couldn't have prepared de Clerck for the situation in Burkina
Faso. The hospital had dirt floors. Paint was peeling off the walls. The facility had no
intensive care unit, no operating room and no anesthesia. Still, de Clerck was positive
he and his team could make a difference.
“The surgical conditions were zero,” he recalled. “The smell of infection was
everywhere. And the staff had no experience treating burn victims. But we said, ‘OK, it's
a challenge. We can do this.’”
Big Challenges
The challenges weren't limited to surgical conditions. De Clerck arrived expecting to
treat about 30 burn victims. When he got off the plane, Jean Diallo, the military doctor
managing the crisis, saw de Clerck's handful of medical supplies and asked, “Is that all?
We need to treat 300 people with severe burns, and you have supplies for just 30!”
So De Clerck focused entirely on treating his immediate patients. Then, after three days
of round-the-clock surgery, de Clerck returned to Belgium and secured from the military
a month’s supply of bandages, ointments, burn dressings, equipment and skin grafts.
He and other doctors kept pushing. They contacted medical supply companies and
arranged for over 600 pounds of donated materials.
To control transportation costs, de Clerck got inventive. He had auto exporters stuff
supplies inside the cars and trucks they shipped to Africa. Diallo arranged for military
transports to carry the supplies to the burn treatment center.
De Clerck and Michel worked 14 hours a day, but were still overwhelmed by the volume
of patients and level of critical care required. Realizing the team needed more support,
de Clerck trained local physicians and nurses in surgical techniques and burn treatment.
A month and a half later, patients were on the mend and the situation was under
control. But de Clerck faced his most challenging decision. Should he return to Belgium
and await the next global crisis? Or could he build on his work in Burkina Faso?
“We had the resources, and we had the personnel,” de Clerck said. “We put a lot of
energy into this. So why not try to make a permanent burn hospital?”
With a clear vision, in six months de Clerck was back in Africa planning an independent
burn clinic in Burkina Faso to offer free treatment. Diallo secured approval from the
ministers of defense and health.

3. De Clerck turned to friends, family and contacts for support. When his sister and
brother-in-law planned to celebrate their identical birthday, they asked people to donate
to the clinic in lieu of gifts and raised almost 1,500 euros ($1,900).
De Clerck looks for donated medical supplies. He's secured some from his current
employer, Smith & Nephew, for whom he designs surgical tools. European medical
goods suppliers sometimes contact de Clerck to donate excess inventory.
Work With What You Have
De Clerck understands the value of networking and building relationships. Through
Diallo, de Clerck met an African auto importer. In Brussels, de Clerck chauffeured the
importer from one car dealer to the next to help the businessman gain connections. In
return, the man now ships medical supplies to Africa along with his cargo. De Clerck's
military contacts in Burkina Faso meet each shipment at depots and move the goods to
his clinic.
“There are some NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) that don't like our cooperation
with the military,” de Clerck said. “But they control the borders and everything that
comes in. We have had 400 tons of supplies shipped to Burkina Faso, and we've never
had anything lost or stolen.”
The clinic opened in February with one surgeon, three nurses and an anesthesiologist.
To assure that patients get the best care possible, de Clerck travels to Burkina Faso
every three months to train staff on handling burn victims and performing delicate
procedures such as facial reconstruction where noses and ears have been burned
away. The clinic has 40 basic-care beds and five medium-care beds. So far, more than
200 burn victims from Burkina Faso and neighboring countries, including Mali, Ghana
and Ivory Coast, have been treated.
Diallo set up an office near the clinic to manage daily affairs. De Clerck checks in by
phone or e-mail. "He lets me know that he's getting the supplies," de Clerck said. "He
sends reports on the number of patients he's treating and what types of injuries they
have. Then I tell him what kind of follow-up treatment I think they need."
De Clerck plans to build an intensive care unit and operating room.
He closely follows humanitarian efforts of headline grabbers such as U2's lead singer
Bono, who's lobbied global leaders to make pharmaceuticals available free to African
countries.
“We’re working for the same goal, but on different levels,” de Clerck said. “We each try
to help the poor with the knowledge we have and the people we know.”