UCTH successfully performs hospital’s first open heart surgery

University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) has performed its first open heart surgery.

The surgical procedure was carried out on a female patient in Cross River State, the first of such medical procedures to be carried out in South South Nigeria.

Chief Medical Director, CMD of the hospital, Professor Ikpeme Ikpeme in a statement stated that the surgery lasted six and a half hours, noting “at 6.43pm the patient was wheeled into the Intensive care unit.”

Professor Ikpeme disclosed that the patient received a Mitral valve replacement, which was the culmination of 2 years of hard work, determination, sacrifice, vision and focus at different levels of the hospitals.

 “We must offer sincere gratitude to God and all who worked to make this happen. It is the guiding principle of this Management to work quietly to achieve the vision and mission of our hospital and to reposition it appropriately in the comity of Tertiary Health Institutions in Nigeria,’’ Professor Ikpeme explained.

The CMD also stated that the success recorded was driven by the hospital’s agenda to be focused rather than distracted.

He appreciated the staff for the feat achieved.

“A Memorandum of Understanding, MOU for Open Heart Surgery Missions was signed with the VOOM Foundation in 2015/16. Things went quiet until the MOU was reviewed with the Foundation in July/August 2019.

“UCTH made a commitment to actualisation the programme and domesticate open heart surgery in our hospital. After 2 years of sacrificial hard work, doggedness, critical planning and determination against many odds, here we are today.

“We constructed a new Theatre Suite using in-house engineering and technical teams. We had to create a multidisciplinary heart surgery team. We also had to clear two 40ft-containers from Onne Port in Port Harcourt and invested in equipment worth millions of Naira – Heart-Lung machine, Heater-Cooler inter-exchanger system,  cell savers, high-end anaesthetic machine, high-end monitors as well as Defibrillator with internal pads, ventilators,  digital mobile x-ray system and more,’’ Professor Ikpeme said.

According to him, the team spent long hours to get equipment and other facilities ready for the project, acknowledging the assistance of veterans medical surgeons.

“We are the first tertiary health institution in South-South Nigeria to accomplish this and join a group of very few elite centres nationwide. And at this early stage, we are offering these surgeries at 30 percentage of their actual cost.

“This programme does not belong to any individual or administration, it belongs to UCTH and can only be sustained when we choose to be a TEAM.’’

Professor Ikpeme pledged that the hospital would resuscitate basic services by striving to introduce higher end services that would define its existence as a tertiary centre and contribute to the well-being of the people and community.

He said: “As resources permit, we will continue to work with departments and units that demonstrate a hunger for growth. We may not have always gotten it right, sometimes we have faltered, but we are determined to remain focused under God, and work to develop the UCTH.’’

The CMD noted that the year had been difficult for the hospital like most other institutions, communities and even nations.

Professor Ikpeme further explained that UCTH has struggled and remained afloat by the grace and mercy of God and with the dogged determination of its patriotic members of staff.

He described the feat as a just reward for the labours of love and patriotism of members of staff and other stakeholders to the nation.

“I wish to express sincere gratitude to everyone who made this happen. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, who granted approval with insistence on skills transfer.

“Our surgeons led this effort actively and some team members came from across the country. We thank the Board Chairman and Governing Board for giving us the wings to fly,’’ he said.

While expressing appreciation to all other stakeholders for their efforts, he said there was still a lot of work to be done to fully domesticate the procedure.

Professor Ikpeme added that he looked forward to a day when such procedures would be domesticated and become a routine procedure by all UCTH team.