REGINA — Pasqua Hospital is the location for a new state-of-the-art robot-assisted surgical system coming to Regina for the first time.
The da Vinci Surgical System, as it is called, launched in September in Regina, with nearly 20 surgeries performed there since it started. According to the province those have included hysterectomies and hernia surgery.
Pasqua Hospital is the third location in the province with the new system, on the heels of two other locations at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan government has invested $2 million annually since 2022 to expand the system in the province.
The system is being touted as one that will provide less invasive procedures and faster recovery times. How it works, according to the province’s news release, is the surgeon is located at a central control panel, and is able to guide the robot’s actions by using hand and foot controls to move its arms, which holds a camera and surgical instruments. The camera provides a magnified 3D view of the surgical area so the surgeon can see what is going on much more clearly than doing traditional surgery.
Dr. Jeffrey Gu, general surgeon with Saskatchewan Health Authority, describes how it works.
“It gives us the capability to do much more precise surgery, makes more challenging surgery a lot easier,” said Gu.
“The arms are wristed. You've got full control of all four instruments. All these things kind of combine to lead to these better patient outcomes that have been discussed over and over. Decreased post-op complications, decreased pain, shorter hospital stays. It's really the next step in surgery.”
Gu noted that prostate surgery is the type of surgery that has benefited the most based on the evidence.
“With the bigger procedures, especially in things like complex type anatomical areas like prostate, there's a lot of evidence for decreased complication rates, less pain, lower readmission rates, shorter hospital stays, and all those.”
He said the reaction from his colleagues has been positive.
“Right now, there's just the two of us using the robot here in Regina,” said Gu. “We're loving it. The guys in Saskatoon, I talked to the thoracic group there quite a bit. We have some overlap in practice, and they love the robot.”
Gu admitted that before using the robot, “I was actually a little bit skeptical of how great it would be, because I did everything laparoscopically. I thought this was already very, very excellent surgery we're doing, but now that I'm on the robot, it can't go back. It's just awesome.”
Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill pointed to the benefits this will have for patients.
“In terms of how we can do more minimally invasive surgeries and obviously lower readmission rates, lower the amount of pain that a patient goes through post-surgery, and then at the end of the day reduce their stay in the hospital by multiple days post-surgery. That's a huge advantage.
"I know, if people have been through surgery before, people want to get home. They want to be at home recovering close to family and friends. So, again, when we talk about lowering readmission rates, reducing the amount of pain, reducing the stay in hospitals, that has massive impacts on both the patient and the system as a whole.”
Cockrill also pointed to benefits in terms of recruitment and retention of health professionals.
“Dr. Gu is a great example. This is a young guy who grew up in this province, trained at the University of Saskatchewan, received another level of high-quality training in Ottawa, and then has come back and brought his talents back to the people of Saskatchewan."
He said having the da Vinci robot is “another way, another tool in your toolbox, a way, he said it well too, to extend what you're able to do for your patients. And I think that's an exciting piece and something I think that we can really be proud of in Saskatchewan to now have three robots running.”
