Dr. Nurahmad Latifi the managing director of the Hazrat-E-Fatemeh hospital talked with us about the medical services provided by this center.
“Hazrat-E-Fatemeh” hospital is one of the hospitals with the sole specialty of operating in the fields of rhinoplasty and plastic surgery. This hospital was founded in 1976, beginning its activities in pediatrics, gynecology, surgeries and internal medicine. With the breakout of the Iran-Iraq war, the hospital changed its focus to plastic surgeries. We sat down with Dr. Nurahmad Latifi, subspecialist in rhinopplasty and plastic surgery to discuss about the aforementioned hospital, as well as the attraction of medical tourists.”
Doctor, for the beginning, please present us with some background on the Hazrat-E-Fatemeh Hospital.
“Hazrat-E-Fatemeh is a subspecialist, uni-disciplinary hospital in the sphere of rhinoplasty and plastic surgery, and one might say that, this hospital is unique in all of Middle East. Out of necessity caused by the Islamic revolution and the war, the medical center was equipped with infrastructures to serve the patients with issues relating to our field out of medicine, and subsequently attracted a large number of doctors and professors. For a long time, there were foreign professor at the hospital for the purposes of education and providing treatment for those injured in the war.
These days, specialists work under the branch of plastic surgery in this center. While serving patients, they also pledge themselves to educating young medics. The majority of the patients that visit the Hazrat-E-Fatemeh hospital usually have suffered events relating to their hands. Approximately 20 to 40 patients come to us daily, suffering traumas in their hands; they usually consist of workers or people who experienced accidents. Hence, one of the most important sections of the hospital is that of care for hands through microscopy, which leads to the hand and finger transplantation surgeries to be done uniquely in this center.”
What makes up the strategy of the hospital in the subject of providing medical services?
“As I mentioned earlier, this is a subspecialty hospital. Most patients, whom require plastic surgery services, resort to here. Patients from Iraq and Afghanistan also refer themselves to this hospital.
Surgeries concerning jaws and the face are quite difficult and complicated, which give rise to unique surgeries being concluded in this hospital. This is the result of the experience and the skill of the experts in the Hazrat-E-Fatemeh health center. We receive patients afflicted with traumas relating to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. As said beforehand, this is a subspecialist center, with currently 26 subspecialist assistants receiving education in the areas of plastic surgery, microscopy and hand treatment, as well as Fellowship courses on burns. For this reason the hospital is obligated to have its knowledge up to date and we keep conforming to any form of scientific advancements in the fields of plastic surgery and rhinology. We can even claim to be ahead of many of the medical centers in Europe.”
One of the services provided in this health center is sexual reassignment. Considering that the costs for this operation are quite high around the globe, and that the neighboring countries do not provide this service, what are the capacities of Iran in this line?
“This surgery is done in many American and European countries and the methods we use to conduct this service in the Hazrat-E-Fatemeh hospital are in strict accordance with standards of those countries.
There is no legal obstacle for foreign subjects to undergo this operation in Iran. We provide this service for them with the highest of quality, similar as to serving an Iranian patient. In general, we have the potential for this line of work in both quantity as well as quality.”
Another one of the services supplied by this hospital, which is in high demand all over Iran and even in neighboring countries, is cleft lip repair surgery for infants. Tell us how this service is done, as well as the potentials of this section of the hospital.
“These individuals are known to be dealing with cleft mouths and lips, which are categorized as birth defects. And their quantity is not low either, especially in the surrounding countries where the social stress is quite highly present.
These days the number of these patients is rather high, as a result of high amounts of stress and pressure that pregnant mothers experience due to civil wars. In most cases there is no treatment available due to the lack of facility for these birth defects. Therefore these patients can be redirected to Iran.
The infants that go through this defect must be under the care of a doctor and specialist since the moment they are born. That means before we can conduct surgery at the age of 2 or 3 months, there are a series of interactions that are required to be applied to the lips in order for the patient to be able to undergo the surgery itself. In fact before the patient reaches the age of puberty, there are about 16 surgeries that need to be performed, and in this hospital we conduct them in the best manner possible.