By Lenka Farkašová & Martin Knápek

OLV Hospital Aalst, Belgium

 OLV is a very big and modern hospital. We spent one week on the operating theatres which were a separated department.  This week was full of experience. We found out how it works there and we met a lot of new people.  Lifestyle in Aalst is a little bit different because no one was in a hurry.  Our work shift was from 8:00 am. to 4:00 pm.

Operating theatres  On this ward are 17 operating theatres where doctors provide operations under anaesthesia and 4 operating theatres where the operations are without using anaesthesia.  Staff consist of 40 surgeons, 20 anaesthetists and 107 nurses.  The operations starts at 8 o´clock am. First of all the anaesthetist puts patient to narcosis, the doctor injects vein twice and the nurse disinfects the operating field. Then comes the surgeon and starts his work.

Operating theatres  The operating theatres are divided according to individual areas: cardiovascular surgery, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, neurology …  For abdominal surgeries keyhole surgery is mainly used.  In this ward there are 3 robots for robotic surgery. They use The da Vinci Surgical System.  This system enables surgeons to perform delicate and complex operations through a few tiny incisions with increased vision, precision, dexterity and control.

The da Vinci Surgical Robot

Special operating rooms  In this department there are some operating rooms which are used only for specific body parts:  Room with a special machine, which is used for breaking kidney stones

Special operating rooms  Room for eye surgery  Septic room  2 rooms for cardiovascular surgery

Special operating rooms  Operating theatre includes a small room where you can watch the operation on the monitors and when it is needed you can record the whole operation on CD.

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