The three-day international conference of the Federation of Associations of Paediatric Surgeons in Saarc (FAPSS) and the congress of Association of Paediatric Surgeons of Bangladesh (APSB) ended here in the port city ushering in a new horizon of paediatric treatment in the country.

With the support of the ministry for health and family welfare, the conference began with the theme "Committed Together for Better Future" at the Chittagong Eye Infirmary and Training Complex of BNSB at Pahartali on Thursday.

In two surgery workshops held at the operation theatre of the Paediatric Surgery of Chittagong Medical College and Hospital (CMCH), some critical operations were carried out for the first time in Chittagong in presence of world famous paediatric surgeons like Prof JM Hudson (Australia), Prof Annette Jacobson (Singapore), Prof Steven Rothenberg (USA), Prof Jose Boix-ochoa (Spain), Prof KR Srimurthy (India), Prof Pinter (Hungary) and Prof Ahmed Hadidi (Germany).

According to sources, Laparoscopic Surgery and Hypospadias surgery, though very common in developed countries, are quite new in the paediatric surgical treatment of Bangladesh.

Laparoscopy is an operation done with a certain machine without dissecting stomach for treatment of congenital defectsinside belly.

Through Hypospadias surgery anus congenitally lying below the usual place or congenitally defective sexual organ of male and female are rightly transplanted, sources said.

Sources said these two phenomena are quite unknown to the people of this country. Never before were that these types of critical surgery carried out in Bangladesh due to nonavailability of expensive machine and lack of expertise of the concerned in this regard.

“This type of operation costs around $25,000 evenin the developed country like USA,” said Professor Dr Tahmina Bany, head of CMCH paediatric surgery department and also the chairman of the conference organising committee.