(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The Peninsula
Doha: Hamad Medical Corporation's (HMC) Neurosurgery Department has achieved several successive developments over the past three years in terms of the types and numbers of surgeries it performs every year.
For the first time since its establishment, HMC's Neurosurgery Department performed more than 1000 neurosurgeries in one year (2021), which is a huge leap in surgical activity in this specialty. The surgeries included 177 brain surgeries to remove tumors, more than 300 spinal surgeries, as well as other surgical procedures to treat cases with strokes, traumatic brain injuries, cerebrovascular diseases, and other neurosurgical conditions.
“Surgical services at HMC meet the best international standards in terms of patient safety and the surgical technology used by our surgeons. HMC is committed to enhancing the surgical infrastructure in all its departments and specialties and to providing innovative services and technologies to enhance surgical capacity and capabilities across all its hospitals, as well as to providing the best and most advanced surgical services available to Qatar's population,” Dr Abdulla Al Ansari, Chief Medical Officer and Chairman of Surgery at HMC said.
Dr Abdulla Al Ansari, Chief Medical Officer and Chairman of Surgery at HMC
Dr. Sirajeddin Belkhair, Senior Consultant and Head of the Neurosurgery Department at HMC said that the strategy of the Neurosurgery Department over the past few years has been focused on achieving several objectives, such as improving the quality of neurosurgical care at HMC and enhancing the confidence of the local community in the quality of treatment services provided at HMC so that patients opt to seek neurosurgery services locally instead of to seek treatment abroad.
Dr. Sirajeddin Belkhair, Senior Consultant and Head of the Neurosurgery Department at HMC
Dr. Belkhair, who became Head of the Neurosurgery Department at HMC in January 2018, highlighted the department's success in performing a number of highly-complex surgeries for the first time in Qatar over the past months, including more than 10 brain tumor surgeries performed on awake patients, four brain surgeries for epilepsy with intra operative electroencephalography brain mapping, and a brain bypass surgery on a patient with Moyamoya Disease as part of the Brain Re-Vascularization Program, which was introduced three years ago. HMC is currently the only healthcare provider in the region to offer this surgery, which is a last-resort treatment for patients suffering from Moyamoya disease. All these surgeries demonstrate HMC's excellence in the delivery of surgical services.
Dr. Belkhair attributes the significant increase in the number and complexity of surgeries performed by HMC's neurosurgeons to the increased confidence of patients, citizens and residents, in the quality of surgical and healthcare services they receive at HMC. This encourages more and more patients to opt to seek treatment in Qatar where they can receive the best healthcare while they are with their families and loved ones instead of traveling abroad for treatment.
“The Neurosurgery Department is staffed with five senior consultants, three consultants, and nine specialists. We have two operating rooms available round the clock to allow our surgeons to perform surgeries 24/7, including surgeries on weekend days for trauma and stroke patients and for cases with hemorrhage due to aneurysms or vascular anomalies. The global reputation that HMC has gained for its world-class neurosurgical services has led it to become a treatment destination for many patients from across the region. We now see patients from neighboring countries such as Kuwait and Oman travelling to Qatar to undergo brain surgeries,” said Dr. Belkhair.
Dr. Sirajeddin Belkhair, who is also the Director of Neurosurgery Residency Program at HMC, explained that there are currently 15 neurosurgery residents from nine different countries enrolled in HMC's Neurosurgery Residency Program. Our residents are provided with high-quality training to ensure they become world-class neurosurgeons. The seven-year training program is carried out at Hamad General Hospital (HGH) under supervision of HMC surgeons. After obtaining a Fellowship in Neurosurgery, some of the graduates of this program traveled to work in hospitals in the United States, Canada, and Europe, which demonstrates the high quality, world-class training they received at HMC. We also offer training to students from Qatar University's College of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar during their undergraduate years.
The continued efforts of HMC's Neurosurgery Department have helped it achieve international accreditation from the Joint Commission International (JCI). In addition, HMC's Neurosurgery Residency Program achieved accreditation from the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education – International (ACGME-I) in July 2021, which demonstrates excellence in the way medical graduates are trained through residency, internship, and fellowship programs. HMC's Neurosurgery Residency Program is the second program outside of the United States to achieve the ACGME-I accreditation.
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