Sparman: Up to doctors

Dr Alfred Sparman said he believed the Ministry of Health and pharmaceutical companies had the public's best interest at heart. (Nigel Browne)

Thu, January 12, 2012 - 10:00 AM

THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH has come in for high praise from a local private cardiologist, Dr Alfred Sparman, concerning the drug formulary.

During a Press briefing yesterday to announce his first successful catheter-directed thrombolytic operation in Barbados, he said it was up to doctors to make the current formulary work.

“The onus is on us doctors to get patients drugs that are on the formulary which are just as good as those that are not. There is always a substitute for any drug,” he said.

Sparman, speaking yesterday in his clinic at 6th Avenue, Belleville, St Michael, said he believed the Ministry of Health and pharmaceutical companies had the best interest of the public at heart and were doing their best for the country.

As for the operation, Sparman said it was a big step for medical tourism here.

“When tourists come here, they want to know we can offer things like these. It will ultimately improve our revenue through medical tourism,” he said.

Sparman said the operation was performed on a man in his 70s on Christmas Eve last year.

“The gentleman presented with a left upper extremity that was discoloured, painful, had decreased mobility and no pulse. We did an angiogram which showed thrombus [a blood clot] from his heart all the way to a brachial artery.

“Using catheters, I was able to engage the left subclavian artery in the right groin. I introduced a catheter into the clot sealing off any retrograde [backward] flow of thrombus to the brain and an intra-arterial tissue plasminogen activator, TPA, was introduced to dissolve the thrombus,” he explained.

Sparman said the procedure took approximately five hours but was a complete success as afterward, they recorded a full pulse in the distal artery and there were no complications, adding the patient’s arm regained its warmth and colour and he was discharged in two days.

Catheter-directed thrombolytic therapy is a newer approach for patients with thrombosis in blood vessels that can produce life-threatening consequences.

Originally, the approach for these patients would be surgery under general anaesthesia with subsequent graft bypass similar to open heart surgery, which can have major side effects.

“This procedure is extremely new in the region. Without intervention, this patient would have had gangrene of his upper extremity, sepsis, and would have died,” Sparman said. (CA)