UBTH to begin open-heart surgery soon, says CMD

Chief Medical Director (CMD), University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Prof Michael Ibadin, yesterday expressed the hospital’s readiness to begin open-heart surgery, saying it was determined to alleviate the plights of cardiac disease patients seeking treatment overseas.

Ibadin, who disclosed this at a press conference in Benin City, the Edo State capital, said the hospital has sponsored and trained cardiothoracic consultants who are experts in heart diseases surgery, adding that current efforts at seeking treatment overseas for heart diseases was unnecessary.

He stated that the hospital’s medical expertise was committed to providing “routine and safe surgery” for patients, including indigent cardiac patients.

Lamenting the economic crunch in the country on the health sector, Ibadin said it is imperative to look inwards rather than going overseas for medical treatment, stressing that UBTH was ready to offer the first five indigent patients, who are unable to pay for their bills, with free heart surgeries.

He added that heart diseases-related ailments are on the increase as patients, noting both the young and old are sufferers of cardiac diseases.

Consultant Cardiothororaicic and Vascular Surgeon, Department of Surgery at the hospital, Dr Stanley Okugbo, leading the heart diseases team, said the hospital has successfully performed surgeries of the lungs and heart, wondering why patients are increasingly drifting to India and other foreign countries for surgeries, that are routinely and safely offered at the hospital.

Okugbo, who noted that UBTH is in the process of acquiring all modern equipment required for open-heart surgeries, listed some of the breakthrough carried out by the team at the tertiary hospital to include, patent ductus arteriosus (popularly called hole-in-heart) ligation, shunts for cyanotic congenital heart disease, pericardiostomy and pericardiectomy, among others.