A BRADFORD doctor has been to Sri Lanka on a kidney-stone-busting mission.

Consultant radiologist Dr Harry Bardgett, from Bradford Royal Infirmary, spent ten days on the Indian Ocean island showing doctors a new technique to remove kidney stones and helping to reduce the waiting list for surgery by carrying out 21 operations.

He travelled with the Medi Tech Trust charity to teach the island’s new generation of doctors, and some UK trainee doctors who joined the visit, how kidney stones can be shattered and extracted using a tiny camera without the need for open surgery.

The new less-invasive procedure allows patients to be sent home as little as 24 hours after surgery, rather than four or five days later.

Other benefits are reduced blood loss and less damage to the kidney, thanks to the new procedure which sees doctors using much smaller equipment than is traditionally used.

Using ultra-sound, doctors get a picture of the kidney and where the stones are, before making a cut of up to about 1cm through the skin and removing the stones with the endoscope’s help.

Dr Bardgett became involved after a chance meeting with Eastbourne-based consultant urologist Graham Watson, who set up and runs The Medi Tech Trust, donating medical equipment and surgical goods in the developing world as well as the UK.

Last June, the charity donated equipment for the minimally-invasive procedure, known as percutaneous nephrolithotomy, and Mr Watson was so impressed watching Dr Bardgett use it that he asked him to go with him to Sri Lanka to demonstrate the technique.

Dr Bardgett said: “By using endoscopes, surgeons can see the stones, break them up and remove them in fragments.

“When Graham first visited the island he found such a huge patient workload that he decided to take surgeons, who were completing their training in the UK, to Sri Lanka with him to give highly-concentrated training sessions.”

Those intensive, hands-on training courses are now part of the charity’s Stonebuster Initiative, which encourages non-invasive surgical procedures and modern stone surgery.

The team visited Colombo South Teaching Hospital and Kandy General Hospital during their stay.

“It was incredibly rewarding work to know that you are making a difference to a patient’s life and if I am asked to return, I will,” said Dr Bardgett.

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