Medical first as liver patient heads home
New surgery option cuts travel time for patients, family
A MERE six days after undergoing a complex, four-hour surgery to remove part of his liver, Ross Ollson left St Andrew’s Toowoomba Hospital yesterday having helped make medical history in the Garden City.
The 73-year-old was the first person to have liver surgery on the Darling Downs, thanks to the hospital’s investment in new technology and staff.
NEW equipment at St Andrew’s Toowoomba Hospital, along with the recruitment of specialised surgeon Dr Neil Wylie, has seen the success of Toowoomba’s first liver surgery.
Ross Ollson, 73, had the dubious honour of being the first patient in Toowoomba to have part of his liver removed, after previously having his gall bladder removed in September due to an abnormality that turned out to be cancerous.
Six days on from the complex, four-hour surgery Mr Ollson said he was feeling “pretty good”, joking that “somebody’s got to be first”.
“It looks like it worked alright,” Mr Ollson said of the surgery.
“I suppose I can vouch for that.”
The new equipment that enabled the surgery was a $50,000 piece of ultrasound equipment that provides realtime diagnostic and staging information.
The machine was used in both stages of the surgery - first to examine the liver and ensure it was healthy enough for the operation to go ahead, and then secondly during the surgery itself, allowing Dr Wylie to peer inside the liver has he went about his delicate work.
“The problem is you’ve got a lot of blood vessels that go in (the liver) and you need to make sure that you control the bleeding,” he said.
“We (also) need to make sure we remove the lymph nodes but that we don’t damage the remaining bile ducts. That’s what we call meticulous dissection, which is just taking our time and being very clear and careful about what we remove and what we leave behind.”
Mr Ollson, a retired farmer who lives in Kingaroy, said it was much better to be able to come to Toowoomba for such serious surgery, as opposed to travelling to the capital.
“Brisbane, you’re half-crook before you get there. It’s just much easier travelling for family to come here,” he said.
“”I’ve certainly been looked after well and had the honour of using this new machine, though I don’t remember much about that part.”