Video: Take a look at the
new laparascopic theatre at Maidstone Hospital

by Mary Graham

Beaming the inside of a patient's body
onto a giant TV screen is just one of the latest techniques being
pioneered at Maidstone Hospital.

Today the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS
Trust unveiled its new laparascopic theatre at Maidstone
Hospital.

Later in the year the hospital will
become the first in the UK to broadcast innovative laparascopic
procedures by video link to surgeons across the world and the
trust will become an international teaching and training centre for
the techniques.

The images picked up are displayed on
a television monitor so the surgeon can see what is happening in
real time. Having an operation by keyhole surgery means a patient
does not have to be cut open.

Building work is due to begin next
week on the training centre.

Amir Nisar, consultant upper GI
surgeon and laparoscopic, said: "Laparascopic surgery has many
benefits for patients such as less post-operative pain and a
quicker recovery time.

"As a surgeon carrying out the
procedure you do have to disassociate yourself with what is
happening in front of you and focus on what is happening with the
screen."