TongaUrology
TongaUrology
About
A New Way of Helping
The team behind Tonga Urology have been supporting urology services to the Kingdom of Tonga since 2013. Over the last 10 visits over 500 patients have been reviewed and more 250 operations performed at Vaiola Hospital in Nuku'alofa. Visiting teams have previously been supported by the Pacific Islands Program and have concentrated on dealing with acute urological problems. There is now a need to develop services on the islands ensuring that the dedicated local surgical team can deal with the majority of urology problems. To this end Tonga Urology intends to help provide both the equipment and support needed to train the local team.
Urology
Transforming Lives
Urology is the specialty dealing with conditions effecting the urinary tract. Despite bladder stone operations being described over thousands of years the specialty only separated from general surgery in the 2oth Century and big urology departments only became the norm in developed countries in the last 50 years. The common conditions seen in urology include kidney stones, urinary tract infections, benign prostate problems and cancers of the bladder, prostate, testicles and kidneys.
Urology has been at the forefront of technological changes in medicine with extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (for treating kidney stones) being one of the great medical inventions, robot assisted operations becoming standard for major cancer surgery and high powered lasers being used to rapidly turn stones to dust through miniature telescopes. These advances have reduced most treatments to one or two days in hospital (at most) whereas the older open operations meant patients were detained for one or two weeks with many more complications.
Dr Kolini Vaea and Philip McCahy preforming a retropubic prostatectomy at Vaiola Hospital
Unfortunately the advances are very expensive and not available in developing nations such as Tonga. Until recently most urology operations performed on the islands were the more morbid open types but the team has been able to bring the kit to allow telescopic stone operations which have made a massive difference for patients. The next step is to leave the kit at Vaiola Hospital and train the local surgeons in the necessary techniques.
A large bladder stone
We are very grateful to those companies and organisations that have supported the many trips our teams have made to the Kingdom of Tonga including: Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, Endotherapeutics, Olympus Medical, Monash Health, Mulgrave Private Hospital, St John of God Hospital, Berwick, Central Gippsland Health.
Our Team
Get to Know the Committee behind Tongaurology
TongaUrology: Dedication and Service with Proven Impact
Tonga Urology visits restart after pandemic
Future urology visits
March 2023
A new stone cracker (an EMS Lithoclast) was presented to Vaiola Hospital during the recent team visit. The funds were kindly provided by Digicel Tonga Ltd following a successful Movember campaign. This machine can break up all types of stones and should be active in the department for many years. A/Prof McCahy has over 25 years experience with this kit and has never had to deal with a failure or technical problem - a rare claim with modern equipment!
February/August 2023
After a gap of nearly 40 months a urology team returned to Vaiola Hospital. Over seventy patients were seen and 26 operations performed during the one week visit. Major stone work could not be done for technical reasons, so a second visit was arranged for August. This latest visit was kindly supported by the Pasifika Medical Association and a further 83 patients were seen with 31 operations succesfully completed.
May 2024
The next trip to Vaiola Hospital is planned for 28 May 2024. We are planning to take out a team of 2 nurses, an anaesthetist and 2 surgeons. Unfortunately an earlier trip cannot be planned as the theatre suite at the hospital is being updated and will be out of action during March and April. There are at least 12 big stone operations that need to be performed and another 20 or so cases that have been identified from the 2023 clinics.
A further visit will be planned for September 2024, possibly tying in with the Pacific Islands Surgical Association meeting in Fiji.
November/December 2023
The last visit of 2023 took place from 28 November to 6 December with a nursing team featuring Indra, Di and Graeme, anaesthetics provided by Julian and Philip running between two theatres ably assisted by Dr Aholelei and Dr Tu'ungafasi. Lord Tangi supervised and ensured all went well. Over 40 patients were seen during the Saturday clinic and 37 procedures, including 6 PCNL and 3 open prostate operations, were performed without any complications. Once again the visit was kindly supported by the Pasifika Medical Association.
Donate
Healthcare is expensive. A robotic procedure in Australia can cost in excess of A$30,000. Single use telescopes routinely used in developed countries cost in excess of A$1000. We can send a volunteer team of nurses, anesthetists and surgeons to Tonga to work for a week for less than A$20,000 but we need financial help. Any small amount will make a big difference and with no administrative costs we can guarantee funds going back into Tonga.
