The experience in an operating room should not be made any more strenuous than the procedure itself. Most surgeries last for hours, sometimes as long as 8hours or more. At other times it could be just 45 minutes. The outlay of every operating room, formerly called theatre, is to foster a good working relationship of the primary actors; including the Surgeon and their assistant, the theatre nurses, the anaesthetists; who must work in a synchronised manner for the ultimate good of the patient on the theatre table.
I have been in several surgeries, involving several complex procedures, and sadly, power was cut by PHCN. Yes!!! The Power Holding Company Of Nigeria still influence the action of Surgeons who do life changing surgeries. We have had to resort to using high power rechargeable halogen lamps for the remainder of the procedure, or when the power is restored.
So you can imagine my relief when I saw this post on Nairaland. The post bears encouraging news about a female Nigerian student studying at the University of Derby in the United Kingdom who developed a device to help in the event of a power outage in an operating room.
21 year-old Louise Jaiyeola Oduyoye developed a mobile medical battery called Neva which provides backup electricity to surgical theatres. The device is rather similar to the regular UPS (uninterruptible power supply) but is more dynamic in that it can be adapted to advanced situations. Neva contains replaceable lithium ion battery packs with enough power output to power critical machines during surgeries and reduce the risks associated with power outages.
This was what Louise said about her product, ‘Neva’, “it was developed for countries that have difficulty accessing uninterrupted power supplies so they can perform these surgeries in-country rather than fly people out.”
Hopefully, this ingenious product do not go the way of other similar products, that meets the need and aspirations of millions of end users, but was never developed beyond the prototype stage.
