Despite the new technology, knowledge and skills being provided by the Chinese neurosurgery team, young local doctors are not availing themselves of the opportunities being provided.
South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) chairman Dr Lackram Bodoe, speaking at the opening of the China-T&T Micro-surgical Training Centre on Thursday at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital, reiterated his call to local doctors to grasp the opportunities. The first of its kind in the Caribbean, the training centre was established after the Chinese medical team observed that doctors here lacked microsurgical skills. The Chinese donated the equipment valued at $1 million for the training centre.
The Chinese team is in T&T based on a memorandum of understanding in which T&T benefits from the services of nine Chinese consultants and one nurse for a two-year period with a new team rotating every six months. Dr Wang Jia, captain of the second medical team, said initially the local doctors could not assist the Chinese consultant in microsurgical surgery because they lacked the necessary skills.
However, he said, they trained some of the junior doctors who showed great interest and passion. Citing newspaper articles about SEA top student Anusha Saha who wants to be a brain surgeon, he said: “We have to set up training centres from now.
“Microsurgical training is very important for minimal invasive surgery, not only neurosurgery,” he said.
Praising the Chinese medical team for the good work they had been doing in T&T, Bodoe said, “We are very happy with the knowledge and skills being brought here. Our challenge still remains, however, in our local doctors taking up the neurosurgery training. In other areas, for example, interventional cardiology, we are doing pretty good.
We have doctors being trained there, but I still want to throw out the challenge for our local younger doctors to avail themselves of this training.”
With microsurgery, he said, the results would be better and the complication rates lower, whereas are going to be less and the recovery time for the patients was faster. Prior to the arrival of the Chinese neurosurgeons there had been a long waiting list.
“But, as we speak now and with these doctors operating on a regular basis, I would say that the waiting time for this type of surgery would perhaps be no more than a month and in cases where it is an urgent case it can be done within a few days.”
The training period, he said, would depend on the level of skills the doctor already possessed, but generally it would take about three to six months to become proficient in microsurgical skills.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Colin Furlonge who apologised for Health Minister Fuad Khan’s absence described the opening as a landmark occasion.