One lucky lady from the community of Micoud is counting her blessing having successfully undergone laparoscopic surgery to remove a breadfruit size tumor from her abdomen. The surgery was performed by Dr. Dawit Kabiye, Consultant Surgeon and Head of the Surgical Department at the Victoria Hospital.
As part of the recent laparoscopic training conducted with doctors and nurses at the Victoria Hospital one lucky patient was the beneficiary of this life saving procedure. Laparoscopy is a surgical procedure in which a fiber-optic instrument in inserted through the abdominal wall to view the organs in the abdomen or to permit surgical procedures. Flavia Florence a resident from Micoud had been suffering from an enormous tumor in her abdomen which caused her great discomfort and internal bleeding. Her Son-in-Law, Benoit Michel said he was extremely pleased with the outcome of the surgery and the care and attention she received at the Victoria Hospital.
“I am very, very pleased; very happy, pleasantly surprised. When we found out about the tumor we were very worried. You didn’t know what to expect and you hear a lot of horror stories from persons having tumors and operations and so on and even persons talking about going overseas because our original thoughts were to go to Martinique or somewhere else and after meeting Dr. Kabiye and speaking with him and he explaining the procedure and also because of the episodes that she had we knew that she needed the surgery as quickly as possible.”
We caught up with Ms. Florence four days after her operation. She was in high spirits, ready to be discharged and expressed her gratitude to the doctors for performing this life saving procedure.
“I felt very strong before I went to surgery because I wanted to go for the surgery and I asked god to help me, give me the strength and the courage that I could have gone through it. So when I walked in I had no fear. I was not afraid a bit.”
Warning! The following footage might be slightly disturbing to some persons. It describes the moment the breadfruit sized tumor was removed during the operation by Dr. Kabiye, the lead surgeon performing the laparoscopic surgery at the Victoria Hospital.
“Her recovery has been really remarkable. Blood loss has been very minimal and her pain level is very low. The patient is already drinking and taking in fluids. It has been an eventful outcome compared to an open surgery which is completely opening the abdomen to be able to remove the tumor this was no major cuts basically small to put on a device to be able to do the surgery. To remove the tumor or the mass is where you do the small cut.”
Dr. Kabiye is hopeful for greater investment in laparoscopic equipment which is capable of performing many types of surgical procedures through keyhole surgery. He said the benefits to the patient and hospital are significant.