Healthcare | Tuesday 10 November, 2015 2:56 am |

A Saudi doctor has successfully performed a complex open-heart surgery live on air, while it was being broadcast live from the Al Qassimi Hospital in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

The surgery was performed on a 60-year-old patient whose case was brought to the attention of medical experts attending a medical conference in Dubai.
Dr. Mohammed Bulgat Albarqa, a cardiologist and cardiac catheterization consultant at the King Abdulaziz Medical City at the Ministry of National Guard in the Saudi capital, was among those attending the conference. 

He collaborated with Dr. Abdullah Shehab from the United Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain to conduct the heart procedure on the patient, who had been suffering from tightness in three coronary arteries before undergoing the heart procedure.
“The heart procedure was a complex process that involved the grafting of arteries through a new medical technology which we were using for the first time in the Arabian Gulf,” Albarqa said.

He added that the procedure also entailed the use of the latest techniques and devices in heart surgery and cardiac catheterization.
The Saudi doctor thanked his colleagues who were present during the medical procedure, which was broadcast form the hospital.
“The collaboration among the world’s elite doctors in heart surgery and cardiac catheterization in the GCC countries and Saudi Arabia was evident during the complex surgical procedure,” he said.

Cardiac catheterization is a medical procedure used to diagnose and treat some heart conditions. A long, thin, flexible tube called catheter is put into the blood vessels in the arm, groin or neck, and threaded into the heart.