In the maternity ward of a hospital in Vienna Austria in the mid nineteenth century, mothers were dying by the dozen for no apparent reason.
Dr Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who was working at this hospital, made it his life’s endeavour to solve this intriguing puzzle.
That is how medical science chanced upon the discovery that hands of the care givers were the carriers of germs!
Dr Ignaz proposed a simple practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solution which reduced new mothers’ deaths in Vienna General Hospital to under 1% from earlier rates of 10%-35%.
Around the same time, Dr Joseph Lister in England championed the use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic in surgery for cleaning instruments and surgeon’s hands with remarkable results. Dr Lister later became known as Father of Modern Surgery.
Since then infection control technology has taken giant steps forward to where we are today.
However, modern Studies note that Surgical Site Infections are still a major challenge that can account for 37% of all hospital-acquired infections in surgical patients. That is a big number.
Germs can enter the body through the incision made to conduct surgery.
One incision of open surgery is the size of a adult hand (6-9 inches!).
Thus, smaller the incision size, lower the infection risk through germs.
Laparoscopic or keyhole surgery requires smaller incisions to be made, thereby significantly reducing the patients’ exposure to germs, infection and disease.
One incision of a keyhole surgery is about the size of one to three rice grains (5-12 mm).
So opting for Keyhole Surgery instead of Open Surgery alone brings down chances of surgical site infection.
That’s not all. We use in our Center, the most modern technology of Plasma Sterilization for sterilizing our surgical instruments.
Not many hospitals have a Plasma Sterilizer. It can kill all germs on surgical instruments in short cycle times. This helps us serve many more patients as cleaned instruments come back to OT quickly. Its low temperatures sterilize even delicate instruments safely.
We also have a very dependable flash sterilizer as a back up.
Our Center has performed one of the largest number of Keyhole Surgeries in India on a vast array of complex procedures like Digestive Cancers, Bariatric and Hernia. Also a large number of basic procedures such as keyhole gall bladder and appendix surgeries. All Keyhole Surgery numbers at our center add up-to 10,000.
Still, we have maintained near zero cases of Surgical Site Infections at our Center- thanks to the keyhole technique, our stringent sterilization methods, and advancement in infection control technology.
We are proud of our achievements and we feel grateful everyday to pioneers like Dr Ignaz Semmalweis and Dr Joseph Lister amongst others, who revolutionized sterilization and surgery with their path-breaking findings and unfailing perseverance. Countless lives have been saved because of their monumental contribution.
It is on the shoulders of these giants that our efforts to provide the best Keyhole Surgery results in India stands and grows.
Take Care
