State-of-the-art surgical robot demonstrated in Ulster Hospital theatres

Transcript

00:00We're delighted to have Intuitive here today to demonstrate the robot, the surgical robot,

00:07which is performing simulated robotic assisted surgery and we've all had a bit of an opportunity

00:13to have a go at that today. It's remotely operated by the surgeon who controls the

00:19robot arms and the surgeon works at the console so it's a remote machine but the surgeon still

00:26controls the robot arms. From our point of view in the South Eastern Trust I suppose we're looking at

00:30it for colorectal surgery and quite difficult colorectal surgery which involves surgery in

00:34the pelvis and also from a gynecological point of view there's lots of gynae operations that can be

00:40done particularly hysterectomies and also urology can really use this robot both for a kidney surgery

00:47and also for surgery in the prostate gland so it's got multiple uses and if the robot was here in the

00:52Ulster Hospital it would be a multi-disciplinary use so lots of different specialties would be able

00:57to utilise it. Firstly for patients the patient outcomes following a robotic assisted surgery

01:06are excellent outcomes the length of stay of a patient is less the complications post-op

01:11surgery are less and also the time in theatre is less. This is unimaginable really when you see the

01:18technology involved here and this is probably only the start I think this is going to get better

01:23and we just couldn't imagine this or foresee this you know 20 years ago when I started off.

01:28This is clearly the future of healthcare and also our our trainee surgeons now they're often going

01:33away on fellowships going to Australia and other places in Europe and America and they're learning

01:38surgery on the robot and coming back to Northern Ireland so that's really important for us then

01:42to have this platform in the Ulster Hospital so that we can attract really good top surgeons

01:48to come back. I did do symptom theatres for a while and there was absolutely nothing like this

01:52available so it's amazing to see this type of equipment in action and it's absolutely the future

01:58for sightseeing.