Hi-tech operating theatre to cut recovery time (From Harrow Times)

Hi-tech operating theatre to cut recovery time

2:50pm Saturday 9th August 2008

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PATIENTS at a hospital will receive advanced treatment in a new state of the art operating theatre.

The futuristic £500,000 theatre, based at St Mark’s Hospital, sees equipment suspended from the ceiling by mechanical arms so that lighting and camera angles can be controlled by computers.

The £500,000 theatre, which opened in June, will cut the recovery time for patients who have had keyhole surgery at the hospital at Northwick Park, Watford Road.

Keyhole, or laparoscopic, surgery sees the insertion of a camera into the body, allowing the surgeon to monitor what he is doing. The small cut for the insertion reduces the risk of infection thus reducing time spent in the hospital and, combined with the hospital’s enhanced recovery programme, recovery time.

Surgeon Robin Kennedy said: “In the past, people used to have to stay ten or more days and take at least two to four months to recover fully. Now they stay four days and look fully recovered after two to four weeks.”

The new system also creates high definition images which are essential for teaching at the hospital.

Patients with urological and gynaecological problems will also benefit from the theatre, treating 1,000 patients per year.

The hospital is one of only 16 in the country to become a training centre for keyhole surgery and the only one in the UK recognised as an OMED Centre of Excellence.

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