QNA/Doha

A medical team led by Dr Abdullah al-Ansari, Deputy Chief of Medical, Academic and Research Affairs for Surgical Services at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) is piloting an advanced model of acute care surgery at Hamad General Hospital (HGH), as a progressive approach to specialisation and consultant-based management care for patients.
A multi-disciplinary team of surgeons and clinical experts will provide emergency acute surgical care to patients and make early prognosis decisions on each case received. The experts will also map out treatment plans and refer patients to operating theatres or inpatient wards for further treatment.
Dr al-Ansari said: “This initiative comes as part of HMC’s plan to establish separate facilities for various surgical subspecialty services. We began with urology, breast, gastrointestinal and endocrine surgeries, in addition to organ transplants. This acute care surgery service is the first of its kind in the region. It is being offered in the UK, the US and Australia.”
He stressed that the potential benefits of this concentrated and focused approach to acute surgical care includes greater surveillance by the patient’s medical team from the moment they are admitted through to their discharge.
“A great advantage of this new service is that the multi-disciplinary team of surgeons is available around-the-clock, thus allowing patient immediate access to care,” al-Ansari said.
“The acute care surgery section is a golden ring in the chain of HMC’s surgical service development project, which started various surgical sub-specialty services since I have been appointed Chairman of Surgery in 2009. We first started with urology surgery where we implemented a successful development project, and then proceeded to other surgery sections firmly establishing advanced surgical sub-specialty services, including spine, breast, colon, liver, endocrine and trauma surgeries, in addition to organ transplants and robotic surgeries.”
Al-Ansari said that the acute care surgery programme has been running successfully for more than one year now at HGH, thus encouraging the official inauguration of the programme.