Opinion / Columnist
Road traffic accidents cause neuro surgical backlog
29 Apr 2016 at 07:37hrs | Views
THE increase in the number of road traffic accidents has resulted in a long backlog in patients in need of neuro surgeries, an expert said.
Professor Kazadi Kalangu said while the country already has more than 100 patients requiring nuero surgeries, road traffic accidents and lack of adequate equipment are some of the major challenges the country is facing.
"We do have quite a long backlog, I think more than 100 patients are on the waiting list. It was mainly a challenge of equipment and theatre time operation.
"Backlog has also been increased due to traffic accidents and these have resulted in spinal and brain surgeries requirements. This means we will then have to prioritise the accident victims who usually take precedence over those that are not critical further increasing the backlog," he said.
The other issue has been that of theatre allocation at Parirenyatwa hospital where we only used to do one surgery a week.
"We used to have theatre time allocation challenges where we only used to perform one surgery per week which was later increased to two and now we can do four surgeries since last month".
Professor Kalangu was speaking on the sidelines of a neuro surgeon seminar being hosted by the Zimbabwe Association of Neurological surgeons in the capital.
The seminar that has several experts from more than 10 countries will also see the delegates performing sic surgeries in the country.
"This is a very unique workshop from the usually theoretical trainings that we are used to. This will include more hands on as we go from theory to practise. This will be an opportunity to share experiences and learn.
"Right now there is a team that is performing operations together with local surgeons," he said.
Speaking at the same function, Health and Child Care Minister, David Parirenyatwa hailed the move to have hands on participation by all delegates.
"This type of knowledge transfer is greatly appreciated. With time our local surgeons will acquire significant and sufficient skills to reverse the trend whereby our citizens have to go abroad to seek expert medical services.
"At this rate of collaboration, I can foresee neurosurgeons in this country developing to such an extent that we will in fact attract patients from across our boarders and compete with others on medical tourism."
Professor Kazadi Kalangu said while the country already has more than 100 patients requiring nuero surgeries, road traffic accidents and lack of adequate equipment are some of the major challenges the country is facing.
"We do have quite a long backlog, I think more than 100 patients are on the waiting list. It was mainly a challenge of equipment and theatre time operation.
"Backlog has also been increased due to traffic accidents and these have resulted in spinal and brain surgeries requirements. This means we will then have to prioritise the accident victims who usually take precedence over those that are not critical further increasing the backlog," he said.
The other issue has been that of theatre allocation at Parirenyatwa hospital where we only used to do one surgery a week.
"We used to have theatre time allocation challenges where we only used to perform one surgery per week which was later increased to two and now we can do four surgeries since last month".
The seminar that has several experts from more than 10 countries will also see the delegates performing sic surgeries in the country.
"This is a very unique workshop from the usually theoretical trainings that we are used to. This will include more hands on as we go from theory to practise. This will be an opportunity to share experiences and learn.
"Right now there is a team that is performing operations together with local surgeons," he said.
Speaking at the same function, Health and Child Care Minister, David Parirenyatwa hailed the move to have hands on participation by all delegates.
"This type of knowledge transfer is greatly appreciated. With time our local surgeons will acquire significant and sufficient skills to reverse the trend whereby our citizens have to go abroad to seek expert medical services.
"At this rate of collaboration, I can foresee neurosurgeons in this country developing to such an extent that we will in fact attract patients from across our boarders and compete with others on medical tourism."
Source - H-Metro
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
