THE ROBOT SURGEON WILL SEE YOU NOW

Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town has become the first public hospital in Africa to offer robot-assisted surgery

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

IMAGINE it: you’re wheeled into the operating theatre for surgery and discover that it won’t be a surgeon who’ll wield the scalpel but rather a huge robot with four arms.

Sounds like the stuff of science fiction, yet this is exactly what’s on the cards at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.

Other hospitals around the world have been using robots to perform surgery for years and, with the arrival of a state-of-the-art R38-million Da Vinci Xi robot, which was developed in the US, Groote Schuur has become the first public hospital in Africa to offer robot-assisted surgery.

“It’s really an amazing piece of equipment,” says Dr Samkele Salukazana, a urologist who’s the hospital’s robotic surgery coordinator.

The new acquisition can be used to perform an array of procedures – from cardiothoracic surgery to prostate ops and general surgery such as hernia repairs. The incisions it makes are much smaller than those that surgeons can make in traditional “open” surgery, so it’s far less invasive with less pain and scarring and fewer complications, he says.

The arrival of the robot will augment the work of hospital surgeons. Although Da Vinci Xi – or Robbie the Robot, as staff at Groote Schuur have nicknamed the machine – will now take centre stage in the theatre, a surgeon will sit nearby at a console, looking into the viewfinder and using remote controls to guide the robot’s arms.

Dr Salukazana says it’s important to understand that the robot doesn’t perform the operation. It’s still the surgeon who calls the shots.