RAK Hospital's new joint venture with India's Shalby Hospitals brings the revolutionary Zero ‘0' technique for knee replacement to UAE

•    Radical surgical procedure to offer 10 minutes knee replacement surgery against the usual 2 hours

•    Inventor of “Zero Technique” and “OS Needle”, world renowned Joint replacement surgeon Dr. Vikram Shah to perform surgeries at RAK Hospital.

•    Initiative strengthens RAK Hospital’s positioning as the key medical tourism destination in the region, hospital plans to attract patients from GCC and African countries for joint replacement and complex orthopedic trauma cases.

26 January 2015; Dubai, UAE: Strengthening its positioning as the region’s new medical tourism destination, RAK Hospital, the flagship brand of Arabian
Healthcare Group made a major announcement today on the first day of Arab Health by signing an important joint venture with India’s Shalby Hospitals. As part of the agreement Dr. Vikram Shah- Chairman and Head of Orthopedic Department at Shalby Hospitals and his experienced team members will be regularly visiting RAK

Hospital to conduct procedures in the area of joint replacement, especially Total Knee Replacement (TKR) and Total Hip Replacement (THR). Dr. Shah has introduced and innovated the Zero ‘0’ technique through which he can perform a Joint replacement surgery in 10 minutes against 2 hours taken by other doctors worldwide to perform the same surgery. Considered a surgical revolution in the healthcare history, it is a total knee replacement with minimum of every step, and the best part is patient starts walking within 3 hours of surgery.

Dr. Shah has also developed the ‘OS Needle’ (Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Needle) which can pass through both bone and soft tissue easily so that an Orthopaedic surgeon can finish repairing bone and soft tissues quickly. This invention has greatly reduced the surgical time and failure rate in Orthopaedic surgeries. Before the invention of the OS Needle, surgeons had to use complicated soft tissue procedures in which the failure rate was high.

“RAK Hospital has been attracting a large number of patient’s from African countries for various surgical procedures and now we are here to offer the best in joint replacement at an attractive and affordable cost to local as well as international patients. Patients in need of Total Knee Replacement (TKR) and Total Hip Replacement (THR) in UAE, GCC and African countries will have the most advanced treatment offered in a convenient location in UAE at RAK Hospital”, said Dr. Raza Siddiqui, Executive Director of RAK Hospital and CEO Arabian Healthcare Group.

Speaking on the joint venture Dr Vikram Shah, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Shalby Hospitals, said, “We are extremely delighted to now offer Shalby’s expertise through RAK Hospital to UAE and other destinations. We at our Ahmedabad International Patient Care Centre cater to almost 200 patients every month from Middle-East and Africa”.

“Dubai is well known for its warm hospitality and rich cultural heritage and is well connected with all parts of the world when it comes to travel and logistics. It would be really a great opportunity for us to reach out to patients in UAE and other destinations and to serve them with best of our expertise and services.” said Mr. Ravi Bhandari, CEO - Shalby Hospitals.

Medical tourism has been a prime focus and RAK Hospital’s efforts are geared at attracting a larger share of patients that visit the UAE annually for treatment. The hospital, in fact, is among the handful of medical institutions in the UAE that combine the best of nature with outstanding medical services and care - extending an excellent opportunity to tourists to combine their holiday with top-notch medical care. To offer the best deals to its patients, the hospital has tied up with leading hospitality players and airlines. The packages are designed to keep the needs of the patients in mind and take care of all travel related aspects, including air travel, travel documents, premium hospitality, sightseeing etc. along with treatment at an internationally accredited premium hospital, managed in association with Sonnenhof Swiss Health Ltd, a Switzerland-based healthcare company famed for Swiss hospitality and healthcare offerings.

The ‘zero technique’ is a TKR surgery procedure with the minimum of every invasive step. It is done with a minimal incision and minimum exposure. This results in the minimum of surgical time, exposure, hospital stay, drugs, side effects, blood loss, stress on patients and relatives and so on. According to Dr Shah, earlier in 1994, when he founded Shalby Hospitals, a TKR patient had to stay in hospital for 15-20 days after surgery. Now with the ‘zero technique’, says Dr Shah, which is a revolution in surgical history, the surgery time is reduced to about 10 minutes and the stay time of patient in hospital reduced to 4-5 days. The ‘zero technique’ involves prior planning like implant selection, planning surgical techniques, anaesthesia, analgesia and patient counseling.

Dr. Shah’s precision and accuracy in the Total Knee Replacement surgery, puts him at the top position in the world. Dr. Shah and his team of surgeons, at a single centre, have performed the highest number of joint replacement surgeries in the world, adding up to more than 50,000 till now. Today on an average, Dr. Shah and his team conducts more than 600 joint replacement surgeries in a month. It comes out to be more than 22 surgeries a day. Considering such standards, Dr. Shah and his team conducts highest number of surgeries in a day, Month and Year at Single centre in the world. Dr. Shah has operated on patients from all corners of the world including the US, UK, Canada, Other European Countries, African Countries like Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, Nigeria; Persian Gulf Countries like UAE, Bahrain; Australia and many more.

Dr. Shah has also been appointed the joint international faculty for development of a new joint by Zimmer Inc., USA. Zimmer is one of the largest orthopaedic devices manufacturing company in the world. The aim of developing this joint to allow the patient bend his/her knee fully after TKR surgery. Till recently the artificial knee joints, which were developed in the western world, did not allow TKR patients to cross-legged, which is an Indian traditional way of sitting. The good knee bending possible after surgery at Shalby is solely due to good surgical technique and due to the new joint.