CAPE TOWN — In a theatre at Tygerberg Hospital, a team of South African surgeons has made medical history. For the first time in the country, a kidney was removed from a living donor using robotic surgery, a step experts say could change transplant care for years to come.
The patient was a 54-year-old mother donating her kidney to her 24-year-old daughter. The operation, carried out on Monday, was declared a success.
Dr Danelo du Plessis, a urologist at Tygerberg Hospital and senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University, said the technology gave surgeons unprecedented precision.
“The vision you have through the robot is 3D, high definition, and right up close,” he explained. “It’s much safer, in my opinion, because the margin of error is much smaller than with traditional surgery.”
Kidney donation surgery is especially demanding, as surgeons must not only remove the organ but preserve blood vessels and the ureter. “You need to make sure the blood vessels are kept at their full length,” Dr du Plessis said.
South Africa faces a long transplant waiting list, with thousands needing kidneys each year. Experts hope robotic procedures, though costly and complex, will make surgeries safer and more efficient.
“There is a big need for more kidney donors,” said Dr Andre van der Merwe, head of urology at Tygerberg Hospital and Stellenbosch University. “In the government sector, capacity is limited. But if we use the robot, the efficiency is so high that the operations we do can be more effective.”
The breakthrough is the latest in a broader push to expand access to advanced medicine in South Africa’s public hospitals. Tygerberg and Stellenbosch have invested in training programmes to familiarise young doctors with robotics, part of a strategy to build a pool of specialists across the continent.
“We will keep pushing the boundaries,” Dr van der Merwe said. “With a robot, efficiency and predictability are a big plus.”
For the family at the heart of the surgery, the achievement is deeply personal. But for South African medicine, it is also a glimpse into a future where cutting-edge technology is not the preserve of private hospitals, but part of everyday public healthcare.
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