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CCNTV6
  • 9 months ago
This country is pioneering the way forward for Endoscopic Spine Surgery in the Caribbean Region.


The procedure was launched on February 12th, at the Community Hospital of Seventh-Day Adventists in Port of Spain.


Reporter Alicia Boucher and Cameraman Brandon Benoit bring you the details in this Exclusive Report.
Transcript
00:00Very small skin incision. We would have localized our level of interest prior to
00:07doing the skin incision and ensuring that I'm docking exactly where I want to
00:13be on the bone. We continue with the x-rays. Yes, I'm happy with that shot.
00:19Let's condylators. It's a medically groundbreaking moment for the country
00:24as the Community Hospital of Seventh-day Adventists has brought in state-of-the-art
00:29Joymax equipment from Germany, allowing the facility to offer endoscopic spine
00:33surgery. The first of its kind, we're told, in the English-speaking Caribbean. It
00:38enables surgeons to enter the spinal cord with a camera attached to a small
00:42scope to see and repair the spine. Two surgeries took place right here in this
00:47operating room. One on Wednesday and the other one happened this morning. Now this
00:53can be a game-changer in terms of this minimally invasive procedure. For some
00:58people suffering with spinal issues. Heading the medical team is the first
01:03female neurosurgery and spinal consultant in TNT, Dr. Renee Crookshank
01:08and perhaps the only practicing endoscopic spinal surgeon locally. This
01:13is how she describes TNT now having the ability to perform endoscopic spinal
01:17surgeries. I will certainly say that we are ahead of the curve in terms of the
01:21adoption of this technology. At the moment, we currently have essentially a
01:27mass adoption across the NHS in the UK at the moment. So there are hospitals
01:34that still don't even have this technology in lots of places. A
01:38simulation of how the surgery is performed was created specifically for
01:42our interview with imaging from one of the previous surgeries projected on the
01:46monitor to allow us to get a better insight into the procedure. Before this
01:52advancement, people who needed spinal surgery locally would have either had to
01:56travel out of the English-speaking Caribbean for endoscopic surgery or
02:00undergo open spinal surgery. Dr. Crookshank says the latter can be a
02:05deterrent to people seeking treatment in part because of the size of the
02:09incision. With this and I like to call it ultra minimally invasive approach, the
02:15incision is not more than about half a centimeter in order to just accommodate
02:21the diameter of the scope in order to perform that surgery. So patients find
02:27themselves with a lot less pain after surgery. They need a lot less painkillers
02:32after surgery and they can get back to their regular scheduled programming
02:37sooner which is what is really really favorable. Apart from that, it reduces
02:43the risk for infection and under normal circumstances, it is a same-day discharge
02:49procedure. As for some of the conditions that can be treated through endoscopic
02:54surgery. This procedure is very good for persons who for example they have
03:01sciatica, they have an MRI, they have a herniated disc. Also again coming into
03:07leg pain, you may have changes on the scan where the nerves are very compressed so
03:13you need to make more room for them. Dr. Alphonso Garcia who has pioneered
03:19endoscopic surgeries in his country of Mexico traveled to TNT to witness the
03:24first two surgeries. Chief Executive Officer of the Community Hospital Dr.
03:28Stephen Carroll says it's a significant investment but it opens up a world of
03:33possibilities including in the area of medical tourism. We've had patients come
03:39before Guyana, Grenada, St. Vincent to do old-school neurosurgery on the spine. So
03:49they have been coming you know for the past. But recently there's new
03:54inquiries that they are sending their mammogram, their MRIs but now we are
03:59processing them through the new lens. We are not bringing them in to do open
04:04surgery as we did in the past. He tells us while open surgeries can cost around
04:08$175,000, it might be possible to reduce the cost by about 20% for the
04:15endoscopic surgeries. Dr. Carroll indicates that the hospital is very
04:19focused on the local diaspora and he's open to a public-private partnership. We
04:25should be able to collaborate with the ministry and the RHA to provide this to
04:29them at a minimal cost. As I always say nobody's in the business of losing money
04:33but we could do it in a way that's affordable and help the government to
04:38decompress its system. Alicia Boucher TV6 News
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