By Chioma obinna
A new chapter opened in Nigeria’s healthcare system at the weekend as surgeons at Redeemer’s Health Village (RHV) Hospital, Lagos, in collaboration with Nisa Premier Hospital, Abuja, successfully performed what they described as the first tele-robotic surgery in West Africa.
The landmark procedure saw a surgeon in Lagos remotely operate on a patient undergoing surgery at Nisa Premier Hospital in Abuja, demonstrating for the first time the possibility of delivering complex surgical care across hundreds of kilometres without the operating surgeon being physically present at the patient’s location.
The procedure, witnessed by selected journalists at RHV in Lagos, involved a patient with a kidney tumour in Abuja. Using robotic surgical technology and a high-speed internet connection, the surgical team in Lagos controlled the robotic system at the Abuja hospital to perform the operation.
Robotic Surgeon from RoboMed Global Inc., a US-based company and a Professor of Urology and Transplantation, Obi Davies-Ekwenna, described the development as a significant demonstration of what technology could bring to healthcare delivery in Nigeria.
“The second procedure we did was a tele-surgery procedure where we were able to operate on a patient in Abuja, 500 kilometres away. We were able to operate on a patient with a kidney tumour, a cancer tumour. And so that was successful.”
The tele-robotic operation followed another robotic procedure performed on a 28-year-old woman who had lived with a congenital obstruction affecting the drainage of her kidney.
Speaking with journalists shortly after the surgeries, the Chief Executive Officer of RHV Hospital, Dr Adedamola Dada, said the patient’s condition had placed her kidney at risk of permanent damage.
According to him, the robotic procedure was used to remove the obstruction and reconstruct the affected area to restore the normal flow of urine.
“For those of us who were in the theatre, it was pretty obvious immediately that the obstruction was removed. The urine started flowing very freely,” Dada said.
He said the procedure itself lasted about one-and-a-half hours, excluding preparations for the robotic system, and resulted in minimal blood loss.
“For me, the most important thing is the quality of the work that has been done. The surgery is a lot more precise, the bleeding is almost no bleeding, and the patient can go home early.”
Dada said the significance of the development went beyond the two patients, arguing that remote robotic surgery could expand access to highly specialised medical care in Nigeria.
He said the technology could eventually allow specialists in other parts of Nigeria, or even abroad, to perform complex procedures on patients without requiring them to travel.
“What this simply means is that for very complicated cases where we don’t even have the manpower in-country, surgeons can stay in the US and operate on that patient here,” he said.
“This is a new day for our country.”
The RHV chief executive also said the technology could help reduce the pressure of medical tourism by allowing Nigerians to access advanced procedures locally.
He disclosed that RHV was also developing a robotic academy to train surgeons, operating theatre nurses, biomedical engineers and other specialists needed to sustain robotic surgery in Nigeria.
Also, Chairman of the Board of RHV Hospital, Dr Kunle Onokoya said robotic surgery represented a major evolution from conventional surgical procedures.
He recalled that during his training in the 1980s, some operations could require patients to remain in hospital for about 10 days, with bleeding and infection among the major concerns.
“Fast forward to today, the patient is going to go home today, worst case tomorrow. Bleeding is minimal,” Onokoya said.
He explained that although robots perform the physical movements, they remain under the control of highly trained surgeons.
“The robot is still being controlled by a human being, by a very, very experienced and senior surgeon. It is just that the skills of that surgeon are now being magnified many times over by the robot,” he said.
Davis- Ekwenna said the achievement was the result of collaboration between Nigerian surgeons, engineers, nurses and international partners.
He said the programme was designed not only to perform robotic procedures but also to develop local capacity.
“Our engineers were Nigerians, our surgeons were Nigerians, the nurses are Nigerian,” he said.
According to him, the team hopes to train at least 150 surgeons in robotic surgery within the next two years.
He added that robotic surgery offers patients less pain, fewer complications, reduced infections and faster recovery.
The development, he said, demonstrated that patients across Nigeria could potentially gain access to specialised surgical expertise regardless of their location.
“We just scratched the surface today to show that this can be done. Patients in Nigeria, regardless of where they live, can have access to the best surgical care in the world here in Nigeria, done by Nigerians,” he said.
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