Tamale Teaching Hospital undertakes more successful surgeries

A team of Urologists at the Tamale Teaching Hospital have successfully undertaken surgical operations on a number of people including a 68-year-old woman.

The woman had lived with a disease called Total Pelvic Organ Prolapse (TPOP) for the past 15 years.

The team was led by Dr. Akis Afoko, Head of the Urological Department at the Hospital and supported by Dr. Hans De Wall, Founder of Ananse Foundation and Dr. Alex Danso, Founding President of Pan African Urological Scientist Association.

Dr. Afoko told the GNA in Tamale on Thursday that the department was happy with the feat due to the fact that Total Pelvic Organ Prolapse surgery was one of the first ever successful operation conducted in Ghana.

He explained that the woman (name withheld) was suffering from a condition where her three pelvic organs comprising the bladder, uterus and rectum dropped from its normal spot in her lower belly and pushed against the walls of her vagina.

“This can happen when the muscles that hold the pelvic organs in place get weak or stretched from childbirth or surgery.

During childbirth, these muscles can get weak or stretched and if they don't recover, they can't support the pelvic organs,” he explained.

Dr. Afoko said some of the symptoms of TPOP include, feeling of very full in ones lower belly, as if something is coming out of the vagina, a pull or stretch in the groin area or pain in ones lower back and unusual releasing of urine.

Other surgeries the team undertook include a Penile Reconstruction for complete Epispadias for a six year old boy from Kumasi, who could not attend school due to stigmatization. Complete Epispadis, he said, is the appearance of an open urethra on the dorsal aspect of the penis.

Throwing more light on the condition, he said it was a condition where there was a malformation of the penis in which the urethra ends in an opening on the upper aspect of the penis, which can also affect females.

Dr. Afoko said a surgery was also conducted on a three month old baby, who was suffering from a condition called bladder extrophy, a congenital abnormality in which part of the urinary bladder is situated outside the body.

He said the condition, which was rare in the country, occurs due to failure of the abdominal wall to close during fetal development and results in protrusion of the anterior bladder wall through the lower abdominal wall.

The team, he said, also carried out an operation called Trans Urethral Resection (TURP) of the prostate on a 72-year-old man, to correct a Prostrate Hyperplasia condition.

According to him, the TURP is a type of prostate surgery done to relieve moderate to severe urinary symptoms caused by an enlarged prostate.

The process, he explained, include a combined visual and surgical instrument called resectoscope is inserted through the tip of the penis and into the tube that carries urine from the bladder.

Dr. Afoko expressed the hope that the Tamale Teaching Hospital would improve on its surgical operations and appealed for assistance to be able to tackle all referral cases.**