Lending an Advanced helping hand

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KNYSNA BUSINESS NEWS - The skilful team at Advanced Knysna Surgical Centre has once again shown their golden hand, this time performing a free operation on a one-year-old girl to repair her cleft lip.

The Advanced Health Group was first listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2014, and has since seen astronomical growth in the number of day hospitals it owns. Barely six years down the line from the listing on the JSE, Advanced Health owns and runs 12 first-class day hospitals in South Africa as well as five in Australia.

The day hospital in Knysna was the group's fourth cutting-edge facility in the Western Cape when it opened in 2016.

The centre flaunts two theatres and 20 beds as well as spectacular views of the beautiful Knysna Heads. The well-trained and caring staff help the centre cater for a variety of procedures including ophthalmology; ear, nose and throat; urology; gynaecology; orthopaedic; Maxillo Facial and much more.

One of the centre's top doctors is Dr Marshall Murdoch, a plastic surgeon by trade who has been living in Knysna for 18 months. Dr Murdoch boasts a Bachelor of Science as well as a Bachelor of Medicine, and Bachelor of Surgery, all attained at the University of the Witwatersrand.

He is also an active member of the Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons of South Africa, the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the South African Society for Surgery of the Hand, while also being a fellow of the College of Plastic Surgeons of South Africa.

Dr Marshall Murdoch's rooms are adjacent to Advanced Health.

Dr Murdoch's rooms are adjacent to the facility at Advanced Knysna, but most of the operations he conducts are done in Advanced's theatre. His latest procedure came in the form of repairing young Ashley-Ann Prins' cleft lip, something that posed a slight challenge as she had long passed the usual age when the procedure is usually conducted.

"The typical age for cleft palate surgery is about three months, and she was already well past that age," Dr Murdoch remarked.

Prins was born with a bilateral incomplete cleft lip on 20 December 2018, and although it was Dr Murdoch who conducted the procedure, it wasn't him who first noticed the case. This recognition belongs to one Jana Terblanche, who picked up on Prins' case at Knysna Provincial Hospital.

It was thereafter that she approached Dr Murdoch, hoping to enlist his brilliant hands for the procedure. While Dr Murdoch was more than happy to assist, the hospital didn't have the necessary instruments or anaesthetists trained in dealing with such small children.

The team at Advanced Health which was behind Ashley-Ann Prins' (middle, pictured with mom Jo-Ann) operation.

This is where anaesthetist Dr Esme-Marie Louw came in, who along with Terblanche, Dr Murdoch and a team at Advanced offered up their free time on Saturday 7 December 2019 to conduct the surgery pro bono. For Prins and her parents, Ashwin van Rooyen and Jo-Ann Prins, the procedure was life-changing.

"Before the doctors stepped in to help us out, things were difficult for Ashley-Ann," van Rooyen said. "But now thanks to their amazing work, which we would never have been able to afford otherwise, things are slowly getting much better."

After the procedure, which was conducted at Advanced Knysna, Prins was taken to Knysna Provincial Hospital for her post-operation monitoring, as Advanced Knysna isn't able to hold patients for longer than a day. This is a by-product of brilliant synergy between the private and public healthcare institutions in Knysna according to Dr Murdoch.

"There's a beautiful relationship between us and the teams at Knysna Provincial, that allows for plenty of amazing work to be done," he said.

While Prins' story is markedly beautiful, it is only the start of the synergy between the institutions which promises to bare much more fruit in the years to come.

Dr Murdoch's rooms can be contacted on 044 150 0099, while Advanced Knysna can be contacted on 087 236 8508.

Dr Marshall Murdoch's rooms adjacent to Advanced Health.