Surgeons and clinical staff, theatre circulation and scrub personnel, and anaesthetists, as well as the estates and facilities team at Kent’s Maidstone Hospital, have worked with specialist supplier of integrated audio, video, and instrumentation systems for the operating room, Olympus Medical, to develop what is claimed is among the UK’s most advanced operating theatres yet built for laparoscopic and endoscopic surgery.
HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie discussed the project with Amir Nisar, the surgeon who championed efforts to get the facility built, and Olympus Medical national sales manager, systems integration, James Watts.
Amir Nisar, the general, laparoscopic, oesphagogastric, and bariatric surgeon at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust who, along with two colleagues, upper GI and bariatric surgeon Haythem Ali, and gynaecological consultant Omer Devaja, spearheaded both the drive to get the facility built, and its subsequent planning and design, began by telling me proudly that, in its 14 months in operation to date, the new operating theatre had significantly increased the number of laparoscopic surgical procedures undertaken at Maidstone Hospital. Meanwhile, Olympus Medical’s James Watts described the sophisticated Endoalpha OR equipment package deployed in the theatre as “an advanced installation involving design, planning, consultation, and, most importantly, skilled project management”. He explained: “Our Endoalpha OR project involved a complete refurbishment of one of four existing theatres used for endoscopy to create a state-of-the-art new theatre. We undertook, or managed, all the construction and electrical works, and the installation of operating lights, pendants, and boom arms, to ensure that the theatre was designed and equipped ergonomically to meet the varied demands of minimally invasive surgery. The theatre’s design, with the medical equipment and viewing monitors suspended from pendants, minimises many of the risks associated with trailing cables.” Amir Nisar, a consultant surgeon with extensive laparoscopic surgery expertise, went on to explain on his part that, alongside improving the quality of such surgery offered to patients from throughout the hospital’s catchment area, a key goal in championing the theatre had been to establish a regional centre of excellence for laparoscopic surgery at Maidstone Hospital. Thanks to a raft of advanced audio and video equipment, and audio/video links to a new, recently opened, postgraduate training centre elsewhere on the site, it is hoped the facility will soon be providing first-class laparoscopic surgery training both for more experienced, and up-and coming, surgeons from throughout the UK and overseas. The surgeon went on to describe how plans for the refurbishment of one of the hospital’s four existing laparoscopic theatres to create the new facility first evolved, and how the close business relationship with Olympus developed, and also to discuss his broader views on laparoscopic surgery – which he believes is currently significantly under-utilised in the UK. He said: “The hospital’s existing laparoscopic and endoscopic theatres were built in the 1980s, and we had been keen to upgrade them for some time. Around four years ago we installed new Olympus Medical laparoscopic camera stacks in three of the four, along with a variety of new, more modern, instruments.
Established track record
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