A private hospital on Shakespeare Sarani on Wednesday inaugurated a robot to assist in joint replacement surgeries.

Robot-aided surgeries are more precise and the duration of surgeries lesser than conventional surgeries. An official of The Nightingale Hospital, where the robot was installed, said it was ready to perform surgeries immediately.

The robot, manufactured and supplied by Johnson and Johnson, will be used for joint-replacement surgeries now. The hospital plans to expand robotic surgeries to other forms of orthopaedic surgeries and other specialities, said Sonali Ghosal, the managing director of Nightingale Group of Companies.

“We have been deliberating on introducing robotic surgeries for nearly a year. Once we were sure that it would not be a mere marketing tool, but would improve surgical precision, we decided to procure one robot,” said Ghosal.

The audience at the inaugural ceremony

“We need to keep up with the times. Our motto is to offer quality medical services. I am myself a computer engineer, and introducing newer technologies that can offer better outcomes to patients is our priority,” she said.

A senior official of the hospital said the 120-bed hospital has plans to introduce robotic surgeries in urology, gynecology, plastic surgery and general surgeries. New robots will be procured when robotic surgeries in other specialities are launched.

“We have seven surgeons in the orthopaedic department. Eighty per cent of them have been trained in robotic surgery techniques. The
rest are being trained,” said Ghosal.

Shyamalendu Ghosal, the founder-director of Nightingale Group, inaugurated the robot on Wednesday.

Nightingale Diagnostic and Medicare Private Limited was started in 1989. It was only a diagnostic centre then. Indoor patient admissions started in 1998, and the hospital kept expanding till in it became a 120-bed hospital in 2006.