The Redeemer’s Health Village (RHV) in Mowe, Ogun State, has performed what it described as the first telerobotic surgery in West Africa, in a development aimed at expanding access to technology-driven advanced medical procedures.
The procedure, a right radical nephrectomy, was carried out during the weekend in collaboration with RoboMed Global and Nisa Premier Hospital, Abuja.
The operation involved surgeons at RHV remotely controlling a robotic surgical system to operate on a patient at the Abuja-based hospital.
Telerobotic surgery, also known as remote surgery, enables surgeons to perform procedures on patients from a different location using robotic technology and telecommunications systems.
Speaking after the procedure, the Chief Executive Officer of RHV, Dr Adedamola Dada, described the operation as a major breakthrough for Nigeria’s healthcare sector.
“It’s a huge breakthrough, and then of course, it is the first time telesurgery is done in West Africa,” he said.
Dada explained that the surgical robot at the Abuja hospital was connected to the robotic control system at RHV through an internet connection, allowing the surgeons to remotely carry out the procedure.
He said the technology could make it possible for highly specialised surgeons outside Nigeria to operate on patients in the country in complex cases where the required expertise was not readily available locally.
“What this simply means is that for very complicated cases where we don’t even have the manpower in the country, surgeons can stay in the United States and operate on that patient here,” Dada said.
Before the telerobotic procedure, RHV also performed a robotic-assisted pyeloplasty on a 28-year-old patient on the same day.
Dada explained that the procedure involved reconstructing the renal pelvis to remove an obstruction and restore the normal flow of urine.
“What we have done is called a pyeloplasty. It’s an attempt to reconstruct the pelvis, remove the obstructions, and ensure that the urine flows freely,” he said.
The RHV chief executive, however, called for greater government support for the training of medical professionals in robotic surgery, stressing that developing local expertise would be critical to sustaining the adoption of the technology.
He said sponsorship and scholarship programmes could enable surgeons, nurses, biomedical engineers and other specialists to acquire the skills required to operate and support robotic surgical systems.
“Most of the time, the equipment is really not a challenge; the challenge now is the manpower. We have a lot of private sector people, organisations who would be able to bridge that gap in terms of procuring the robots,” Dada said.
He added: “The government needs to support and sponsor Nigerians – the surgeons, nurses, biomedical engineers – who would want to come for the training by awarding them scholarships so that in another one or two or three years, we would have a lot of professionals who can do this.”
The robotic surgeon who led the procedure, Prof Obi Davies-Ekwenna, said the development demonstrated how technology could help overcome geographical barriers to accessing specialised healthcare.
Davies-Ekwenna said the team successfully operated on a patient in Abuja who was about 500 kilometres away from the RHV facility.
“We were able to operate on a patient in Abuja, 500 kilometres away. We were able to operate on a patient with a kidney tumour, a cancer tumour. And so that was successful,” he said.
According to him, the technology could provide patients with access to specialists within and outside Nigeria without requiring them to travel long distances.
“It means access to experts from within and outside the country. Telesurgery can be done from any part of the world with precision, with excellent results,” he said.
Also speaking, the Chairman of the RHV Board, Dr Kunle Onokoya, said robotic-assisted surgery was expanding the range of procedures that could be performed successfully.
“The kind of surgery that otherwise would have been inoperable, meaning that the risk from surgery was too great, is now being done with robot-assisted surgery,” Onokoya said.
The development marks another step in Nigeria’s adoption of robotic and remote surgical technologies, with stakeholders emphasising the need to combine investment in equipment with sustained training of local medical professionals.
