Challenges of Minimally Invasive Surgery in a Southern Nigerian State: Issues for Discussion

Background: The beauty of modern surgical practice is the achievement of same surgical objective with technology-based techniques eliciting minimal body responses.Minimally invasive surgery has been one of the most important revolutions in surgical technique since the early 1900, but the pace of growth in this mode of treatment has not been uniform across the world or indeed Nigeria.The aim of this study was to explore the issues relating to personnel, equipment, and other associated challenges in minimally invasive surgery practice in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Southern Nigeria.Materials and Methods: This is a multi-specialty, cross-sectional descriptive study carried out in Port Harcourt, Rivers State Nigeria, among minimally invasive surgeons from February 2020 to April 2021.The snowball sampling and contact tracing methods were used to recruit 35 respondents using self-administered questionnaire.Results: Twenty-five of the respondents (71.5%) were above 45years of age, and 26 (74.3%) practice minimally invasive surgery in private health facilities.Twenty-three (65.7%) out of the total trained personnel were not actively practicing minimally invasive surgery, due to several reasons dominated by equipment / instrument issue.There was dearth of minimally invasive surgery equipment and instruments for service in the different specialties of surgery.