Kidney stone disease is one of the worst diseases that can happen to any one person and can be devastating.
Pacific International Hospital has arranged for a Urology specialist from India, Dr Lionel Ganaraj to visit PNG for a week starting today.
Dr Lionel who has extensive experience of more than 20 years in the field of Urology with special expertise in kidney stone removal and transplant of kidneys says endoscopic removal of kidney stones is a procedure to remove one or more kidney stones using “Laser Lithotripsy.”
“This is using a laser to break up the stones.”
The laser is introduced into the body through the urethra in non- invasive procedure which means that no surgery is involved.
“The greatest advantage is that such a procedure is painless and has greater recovery time,” says Dr Lionel.
Dr Lionel says there has been as change of treatment options available for stone disease in the last two decades and stone surgery used to be an open surgery which involved a lot of pain and could take up to six weeks for a person to recovery.
“However, today most of the stone disease surgeries have become minimally invasive”
CEO of PIH, Col Sandeep says that in the constant effort to bring advanced yet affordable health care into the country, PHI has managed to procure the equipment necessary and more important a champion in that field to wield them.
“This makes it possible for a lot of people plagued with problems of the urinary tract to get succor, right here in PNG,” he adds.
Dr Lionel will be in the country until Saturday to do any consultations for patients and surgery if need be.
He plans to visit every three months, based on the number of patients requiring his services, however, the larger the volume of patients, the more frequent he can fly down, as well as the cheaper the procedure can be priced at.
Presently, it is priced very competitively at K7,000 only, which is cheaper than the nearest neighbour offering such treatment.