Guyana offers Caribbean training, long-distance robotic telesurgery

Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 May 2026, 11:15 by Denis Chabrol

Now that Guyana has leapfrogged technologically to perform long-distance complex, minimally invasive surgeries with the highest precision, the South American nation is offering sister Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states to be part of the robotic-assisted system, President Irfaan Ali said Tuesday night.

“This facility, everything that they experience in the most advanced facility in India, in the coming weeks will be available here in Guyana for the rest of the region as we build out the hub for robotics, surgery and care from Guyana and the spokes will be built out throughout the Caribbean and we will provide this training mechanism for all of the teams across the region,” he told a press briefing alongside Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony and a team of specialists.

The Guyanese leader said Guyana invested by purchasing the “entire training module”. He said Guyana secured an agreement with the India-headquartered SS Mantra to establish an international training hub in Guyana to train the country’s professionals. “We had to send our entire team to India to be trained,” he added. 

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said the training programme would be accredited and would form part of post-graduate fellowship training at the University of Guyana and the Ministry of Health.

No questions were allowed after statements and comments were made by those present including Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mottley who said Guyana’s offer to the rest of the region would “hopefully help with easing the backlog and the timing of backlogs.”

The Health Minister said Tuesday’s heart surgery was conducted from the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) on a patient in India, 20,000 kilometres away. President Ali hailed it as the “longest distance telesurgery ever completed in the world.” The  The longest previously was done by SSI Mantra from Australia to India. Officials said highly skilled robotic cardiac surgeon and founder of SS Innovations Dr. Sudhir Srivastava led the team from Guyana. Supporting him were a senior software engineer, the Head of department for robotics instruments, a server network administration expert and a manager of digital media marketing. The procedure in India was supported on site by two doctors. We also had, because we did some cardiac surgery, the local team for the cardiac surgery included Dr. Gary Stephens, Dr. Avalon Jeffrey, Dr. Pradeep Ramkumar, and Dr. Eric, who is a vascular surgeon.

The GPHC said it was a “groundbreaking achievement” because Guyana successfully participated in and facilitated the world’s longest-distance robotic telesurgery, a historic milestone in modern medicine, innovation, and healthcare transformation.

Demerara Waves Online News was told that there were several layers of Internet redundancy and the surgeons in India were also on standby to take over and continue the robotic surgery.

Meanwhile, President Ali said a Robotics Advisory Committee has been established and is being co-chaired by prominent Guyanese cardiologist Dr Mahendra Carpen. Other members are Dr Anthony, Dr Riyad Gaffoor, and  Satindra Prasad, and Steve Carryl.

The Health Minister said “detailed discussions” were already held to expand Guyana’s robotic cardiac surgery. “Where we have some gaps, he is going to work with us to make sure that we can fill those gaps. One of the expertise that we need is a perfusionist so they are going to work with us to make sure that we send somebody for training, and they are going to help us to find that placement, so that we can have our own perfusionist,” he said. A perfusionist operates a heart-lung machine, which is an artificial blood pump, which propels oxygenated blood to the patient’s tissues while the surgeon performs surgery on the heart.