DAVAO CITY—The Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City is the first Department of Health-run hospital in the country to acquire surgical robots.
“SPMC will be the first DOH hospital in the Philippines to have a surgical robotics so ang mag opera robot na. Naa na ang robot,” says SPMC medical center chief Dr. Ricardo Audan.
(The ones doing the operation is a robot, the robot is here already.)
He said the acquisition came from the income of the SPMC. There are only five hospitals in the country with a surgical robot; three private hospitals in Manila and one in Philippine General Hospital which is run by the University of the Philippines system.
He said personnel will be trained two to three months to operate the robot. Audan said 40 doctors will be trained for the robots. These include hands-on training and certifications which will be given after you passed the tests given after the training.
“Naay 40 ka doctors na nag register para mugamit. Kay ang mugamit man jud ana mga doctors,” Audan said.
(There are 40 doctors who registered to use the robot, because the ones who will be using it are doctors.)
He said the robot has two consoles; one console is used for actual procedure while the other is for training.
“Other hospitals they only have one console. We have two consoles. The training will be done at the SPMC with trainors coming from abroad as the training is part of the package. And I was told there is also a training in Singapore,” Audan said.
The Da Vinci robot costs around P350 milllion and is used for surgery, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology among other medical fields.
“Naa siyay capability na all surgical specialties, pwede OB, surgery, neuro,” Audan said.
(The robot has the capability to perform all surgical specialties like OB, surgery or neuro.) (PIA/RG Alama)
