The Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Makurdi has commenced spinal cord surgery with the recent successful operation of five patients.
Daily Trust reports that the development has brightened hope for victims who traveled outside the state to get medical help for their conditions.
Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr Peteru Inunduh, said on Wednesday in Makurdi that at least five surgeries carried out since commencement were successful.
Inunduh noted that the facility was the first hospital in the state to conduct spinal surgery with the expertise of an Egypt trained consultant specialist in Spine and Orthopaedics.
He said that apart from the surgeon who performed the five successful spinal surgeries since his return in 2017, there were twenty other medical doctors undergoing various specialist trainings across the world.
The CMD expressed the federal government’s readiness to acquire more equipment for the spinal surgery theatre as he disclosed that FMC Makurdi has seven standard theaters to accommodate the needs of all trained specialists.
"We realized that the surgical equipment for spinal surgeries are expensive and in the 2018 budget we have a sub head for the purchase of medical equipment and we intend to try as much as possible to procure between 70 to 75 per cent of the equipment they need for such major surgeries," Inunduh stated.
On his part, the Spine Orthopedic surgeon, Dr Joseph Okoh, applauded the federal government for supporting his work through the management FMC in Makurdi.
Okoh said that the first spinal surgery was conducted during the last industrial action by JOHESU, adding, "since I came back from Egypt where I did my specialisation in spine orthopedics, we have done all together a total of five spinal surgeries."
