Heart surgery - the wow factor - video Dailymotion

Cardiologist Peter Scott explains the amazing new technique now available in Canberra.

Transcript

00:00So historically you would have had to have had an open heart operation to fix a valve that was

00:05critically narrowed and that's a very complex, difficult procedure which requires a long wait

00:10list in terms of ICU post-operatively or post-care. Whereas now we can do it through a small incision

00:15through a vein in your leg and from that put a new valve into the heart. And recovery time

00:21for that's about one or two days as opposed to perhaps up to two weeks. So that's one area,

00:27especially helping elderly patients who recover much slower. You make a little incision in the

00:32leg and then you pass a tube all the way up to the heart and from there you can deploy what is

00:38essentially a valve on a balloon which you open the balloon and it squeezes in over your old valve

00:42and it just opens and closes back to normal the way it was whenever you were born.

00:46So previously we couldn't provide that and we had to transfer patients to Sydney whereas now

00:50we can do it internally so it's made a big difference.

00:57you