Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the Robotic-assisted surgery has been the top innovation in the field of surgery of this century that has the ability to take fine and precise actions under the command of a human surgeon.
“The small spaces in the body where the surgeon’s hands cannot reach, and eyes can’t see are easily approached by the robotic arms.”
This he said on Saturday while speaking at the inauguration ceremony of First Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery and Training of Pakistan at Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), said a communiqué.
The ceremony was attended by Parliamentary Secretary of Health Qasim Siraj Soomro, Secretary Health Zulfiqar Shah, Prof. Dr Adib Rizvi and other concerned professors and doctors.
The CM said that the excellent magnification and precision of robotic instruments enabled human surgeons to perform precisely what they want, in order to make a patient disease-free.
He added “the benefits of Robotic surgery will be overarching the fields of Urology, Colorectal, Hepatobiliary, Foregut Surgery and Gynecological Surgery.”
Tracing the history of Robotic Surgery Department and Training Centre at SIUT, Murad Ali Shah said that the first robot was acquired by the Sindh government in 2017 from Intuitive Surgical Company, USA – The da Vinci System.
The system was used both by Dr Ruth Fau, Civil Hospital and SIUT and later the Robot was moved to a dedicated Robotic surgery Unit in SIUT, he said and added that in order to establish a Robotic Surgical Unit a fund was established where the initial seed money was given by the Sindh government and other main contributors were Bashir Dawood and SIUT North America.
The CM said that recently two Robotic surgical units were acquired by SIUT from Cambridge Medical Robotics (CMR), The Versius system. “These are currently used by many centers in Europe, Middle East, India and Latin America, ” he said and added “this acquisition is part of the SIUT philosophy to remain at the cutting-edge of technology.”
Mr Shah said that Robotic surgery was considered the future generation of surgical sciences. “The Robotic procedures are associated with less pain, less blood loss, and faster recovery,” he said and added “patients are discharged within a few days and can resume regular activities.”
The CM said that legendary Prof Adib Rizvi has told him that the unit has started with urological surgeries, to be followed by colorectal and gynecological surgeries.
Murad Ali Shah said that he had been told that so far more than 1000 robotic surgeries have been performed at the department and SIUT plans to set up a regional robotic surgical Training Center to train the next generation of surgeons in this state-of-the-art technology both from within Pakistan and the region.
Earlier, the Chief Minister visited the Robotic surgery unit and watched the surgery procedure from the control room.
The Chief Minister congratulated Prof Adib Rizvi for establishing a world class robotic surgery unit.
Prof Dr Adib Rizvi also thanked the chief minister for his support and cooperation.
