Robotic Spine surgery helps foreigners : Chennai

Stephanie Amata Oghenefegho, a 14-year-old from Nigeria, suffered from spinal deformity and her mother, TV host, Agatha Amata, visited England and Germany to find a solution for the deformity.

“At first, I thought my daughter was hunching and I asked her to walk erect. But only later I found that it was a deformity and through a friend, “I came to know about Dr Sajan Hegde, consultant spine surgeon at Apollo Hospitals.

He assured that after surgery she would be fine and can go back to school. His confidence and solution to my problem brought me here to Chennai,” said Agatha Amata.

Similarly, three more patients, Eric Francis Millican, 65, from California, Julia Obur Deng Lual, 44, from Sudan and Haidur Kadhum Fatay, 33, a drilling engineer from Iraq, came to Chennai last week with different spine-related problems and were treated by Dr Sajan Hegde using robotic spine surgery.

In six months, the hospital has performed 100 surgeries using the robotic spine surgery. “If you take the case of teenage girl Amata, the surgery would have cost five to six times more than the cost in India. They came from different countries and the surgeries were performed only last week,” said Dr Sajan Hegde.

Deputy minister of the Republic of South Sudan Simon Mijok Mijak, whose wife Julia underwent spinal surgery at Apollo Hospitals, said his wife had been suffering from severe lower back pain for three years.

“She was given drugs and when nothing worked, we came here,” he said. Julia was treated with minimally invasive reconstruction using the unique robotic technology to treat her unremitting back pain that distracted her from her normal routine.

Source : Deccan Chronicle , 6th June 2013