Minimally Invasive Surgeries For Rural Hospitals

Dr. J. Gnanaraj is an Urologist & Laparoscopic surgeon from CMC Vellore. He has been working with many mission hospitals in rural and remote areas of India. He is a fellow of the Association of rural surgeons of India, ICS and IAGES. He served as the Editor for the Rural Surgery bulletin. He has over 50 publications of the innovative methods.

Minimally invasive surgeries are becoming common all over the world and are more relevant to the rural patients because of the shorter hospital stay, less pain and quicker recovery. However the problem is the high cost of the equipment and disposables and the steep learning curve. In India 30% or the rural patients do not get surgeries due to financial constraints and 16% of those who do have surgical procedures are pushed below poverty line. We describe our 25 years of experience in making laparoscopic and other minimally invasive surgeries available to the rural population in India. Diagnostic camp models, deferred payment and insurance models that were successful and the details of carrying out minimally invasive surgeries are described. Single incision gas less laparoscopic surgeries is an ideal solution for rural surgeons because it is simple to learn, the equipment sturdy and needs very little maintenance and is easy to cleaning & sterilize. Many modifications of equipment to reduce costs are described.Surgeons in more than 15 rural hospitals have learnt and are practicing these techniques