BONES which would previously be discarded after hip replacement surgeries conducted at St John of God Hospital will now be donated to a “bone bank” to be used in other operations.
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The hospital will become one of the few regional facilities which take part in the process, where the femoral head from the hip will be “clean processed” and made available across Australia for bone grafting.
St John of God peri-operative services manager Troy Tregilles said the hospital performed up to 350 hip replacements a year and had hopes for a high number of patients to donate their femoral head.
“In metropolitan Melbourne there are some hospitals that do, but in a regional setting it just doesn’t happen,” he said.
“It helps us contribute back. We were always pulling out of that bone bank service so it gives us the ability to not just take, it is really about us giving something back as well – and getting our patients to give something back as well, because it doesn’t cost them anything.”
St John of God and Ballarat Base Hospital orthopaedic surgeon David Mitchell said the bones could be used in a variety of different operations including shoulder surgeries and spinal fusions.
“The source of the bones we have been using is a central bone bank but basically it does not have an adequate supply,” he said.
“Rather than waste bones that are satisfactory to use, we can store them and use them on a separate occasion.
“There are lot of other exciting things we are doing in orthopaedics here in Ballarat where we are ahead of the game.
“For instance, our rapid-recovery surgery program – where basically we make patients’ joint replacement so comfortable that they can walk two hours after surgery.”
matthew.dixon@fairfaxmedia.com.au
