Reddington Hospital successfully performs first complex open heart surgery

Reddington Multi-specialist Hospital, Lagos, has announced a successful complex heart surgery involving a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft and Mitral Valve repair in a 66-year-old man, Oluwatoyin Adebiyi.

The complex surgery was performed by the new Tristate Reddington Cardiac programme led by consultant interventional cardiologist, Kamar Adeleke, a professor, and consultant cardiothoracic surgeon, Michael Sanusi, a doctor.

According to the group medical director of Reddington Hospital, Olutunde Lalude, this involved temporarily stopping the heart to carry out the procedures by first, putting the patient on a Heart Lung Machine. Thereafter, the heart was opened and the malfunctioning Mitral Valve was repaired. In addition, the three blocked vessels supplying blood to the heart of the patient were bypassed and the blood flow was restored. The heart was then successfully re-started.

At a media briefing in Lagos to announce this feat, Lalude said the patient’s recovery was almost instant as he started talking, eating and drinking less than 24 hours after the surgery. “The complex surgery performed by a 19-man team of Nigerian specialists demonstrates our ability to expand the range of what is possible in Nigeria, particularly at this time when access to overseas medical travel has been restricted,” the group medical director said.

He said but for the Covid-19 pandemic which has restricted air travel, the patient would have probably chosen to do the complex surgery abroad where he will spend thousands of dollars encouraging capital flight.

Head of the surgical team, Kamar Adeleke, said the COVID-19 pandemic had shown that every country needed to look inward for solutions, adding that with borders closed, the Tristate Reddington Cardiac Programme is ready to offer treatments to complex heart issues, as it has a duty to help Nigerians with such conditions.

He said: “This underscores potential Nigeria has. Reddington practically has everything needed for the success we are celebrating today. It contributed 99 per cent of what you are seeing, but the remaining one per cent was also very vital, which we sourced from outside.”

On how the surgical process went, Adeleke, who is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, said when the team first realized the patient’s heart rate was fast going low, it gave him a temporary pacemaker, which enabled him breathe normally and then embarked on the seven-hour repair of the patient’s leaking valves and other tissues, emphasising that the 19 team members are experts from different areas.

He said: “The following day, the patient went into complete kidney failure, but because we had all expertise here, the kidneys were worked on and in a few days, his body system started working perfectly and he began to urinate normally.”

Adebiyi, who is presently recovering after the surgical operation, said when his health deteriorated in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown, he thought this was the end as no one was allowed to leave the country for treatment abroad.