Babcock University Teaching Hospital Successfully Performs First Spinal Surgery

The Orthopaedic Department of the Babcock University Teaching Hospital (BUTH) in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun, said on Tuesday that it had successfully carried out its first spine surgery. This is coming barely three months after the hospital recorded its first total knee replacement surgical procedure.  

Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Dr Kelechukwu Onuoha, Consultant Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon with BUTH, said that the surgery was carried out under general anaesthesia on a middle-aged female patient with multi-level spinal stenosis.  

Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spaces within your spine, which can put pressure on the nerves that travel through the spine. The condition occurs most often in the lower back and the neck. Some people with spinal stenosis may not have symptoms   Onuoha described the procedure as a revision spinal surgery L2 – L5 lumber spinal decompression and instrumentation. “The 59-years-old patient, who asked for protection of her identity, had undergone a spinal surgery five years earlier in another hospital,” he said. The surgeon added that the procedure lasted five hours and was carried out in the BUTH ultra-modern, new orthopaedic theatre. According to Onuoha, the patient, who is Nigerian, has been discharged and is undergoing rehabilitation.