On Thursday, 25 May 2023, Ghanaian doctors at Greater Accra Regional Hospital in Accra successfully performed an awake brain surgery on a 39-year-old police sergeant, Sylvester Aboagye.

This is the first such operation in West Africa. An awake brain surgery is a kind of procedure in which patients are kept conscious to join the procedure in order to avoid damage.

The patient answers and identifies objects shown to them by the clinical psychologist and neurosurgeon who monitor their reactions.

This allows medical professionals to safely remove brain and skull-base tumours through smaller, more accurate holes with less collateral damage, that is, damage to blood vessels or nerves that was not the original target.

Speaking to the media, consultant neurosurgeon at the hospital, Prof Samuel Kaba, revealed that the patient has been battling with a brain tumour for a long time, moving from one hospital to another but to no avail.

“They realised he started having challenges with hallucinating, always having bad dreams, he started seeing things in a different way. Instead of seeing you as a human being he might be seeing you as an object. He was taken to a hospital in Kumasi.

“They examined him and referred him for further treatment. People thought it was a psychiatric issue so he was sent to the psychiatric hospital where prescriptions were given for psychiatric medication,” he added.

According to him, a check-up on the patient done by the hospital disclosed that he was suffering from a brain tumour, therefore, they recommended he immediately underwent a surgery.

“But when we saw him, we discovered that he had a brain tumour. The tumour was located in the area that helps us to be able to visualise things and position ourselves and be able to have good thinking, regulate the hallucinations and also help us in our emotions.

“We realised that operating on him we then had to work on him awake. Because if we attempted operating on him asleep completely we might be removing the tumour but he would come out with a deficit,” he added.

Mr Kaba revealed that the surgery was successful as a result of the swift intervention of the government by providing the hospital with the needed machines to perform the surgery.

Recently, the Akufo-Addo-led government donated some equipment to the hospital to perform a surgery on conjoined twins.“We are very happy because these are surgeries done in the developed world and we are doing them right here in Ghana. This is possible because of the equipment we had to do the conjoined twins surgeries; now we have used it to serve a lot of people, including this policeman who will go back to service,” Dr Kaba added.