Top hand surgeon heading to Britain

A top surgeon, who took part in the marathon hand surgery on the sword attack victims, is leaving for a job overseas - and colleagues fear others may follow because of funding problems.

Dr Alessandra Canal is heading for a job in Cambridge, England, and colleague Dr Karen Smith - another of last week's surgical team - said her loss could have been avoided, it was reported yesterday.

Dr Canal said while there were frustrations at present, the job at Addenbrookes Hospital was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and she did not want to be drawn into a political debate.

Dr Smith said the hand surgeons were frustrated by the lack of progress towards a separate department of hand surgery. Surgeons who performed Tuesday and Wednesday's marathon operations on Simonne Butler and Renee Hills came from the departments of plastics and orthopaedics.

"We want to improve things. We do hands now but we do them on a shoestring," Dr Smith said.

About 2000 hand patients were on Middlemore's waiting list and could take years to be seen - which in some cases could compromise outcomes.

She said hand surgeons felt valued by patients and colleagues but not by management and she believed this was one reason Dr Canal was leaving.

Plastics surgery department head Dr Cary Mellow said the teams had been pushing for hand surgeons to have a separate centre of excellence.

The number of elective operations done in orthopaedics and plastics in South Auckland Health was smaller than in other regions, because of the high rate of urgent and acute operations. Dr Mellow said some people were waiting up to five days in a hospital bed for acute surgery that should be done within six to 12 hours.

Middlemore spokeswoman Lauren Young said the health board's job was to prioritise health spending and while every specialty was passionate about its own interests, it couldn't spend more on hand surgery "while people are dying of Third World diseases in South Auckland".

She said it was not true the team wasn't valued. "What the surgeons have done is truly fantastic but everything has to be seen in a broader context."

- NZPA

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