Puducherry: Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer), which established a centre for multidisciplinary robot-assisted minimal access surgery in 2017, successfully performed its 50th robotic surgery.
A team of doctors from the institute, including anesthesiologists headed by Sandeep Mishra, head of anesthesiology, and V.K. Mohan, assistant professor of anesthesiology and urologists led by R. Manikandan, head of the department of urology, performed robotic-assisted partial nephrectomy in a patient with renal cancer. Director of Jipmer S.C. Parija pointed out that Jipmer is the only centre in South India, where robotic surgery facilities are provided in a government hospital.
The institution has been providing this high-value service to the patients at a very subsidised cost.
The user charges for robotic surgery is only '50,000 for a private ward patient and '30,000 for general ward patients, which is much less compared to the corporate hospitals where these facilities are available and the charges are about Rs 2 to 3 lakhs per procedure, he said.
Mr Parija said that soon other departments such as paediatric surgery, cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgeries and ENT (head and neck surgery) will also start performing robotically assisted procedures in the near future so that this high-value service is fully utilised for the benefits of the common man. The maiden robotic surgery was performed at the institution in July 2017.
So far the urology department has performed 24 cases, the department of obstetrics and gynaecology has performed 6 cases, department of surgical oncology has performed 10 cases and the department of surgical gastroenterology has performed 10 cases.
