New stroke suite brings life-saving treatment to Kent

Specialist equipment to treat stroke patients has opened at a hospital in Kent - the first standalone mechanical thrombectomy service in the country.

This new facility, at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in Canterbury, allows doctors to use imaging equipment to locate and remove blood clots.

Having access to this equipment has already helped to save the life of father-of-four Anthony Ojo, who collapsed at his Ashford home.

"My children had been asking me questions and I thought I was answering but no words were coming out, it was just babbling and I was dribbling from one side of my mouth," Ojo said.

The support worker, 41, was taken straight to hospital where a CT scan confirmed there was a blood clot in his brain.

The imaging equipment allowed doctors to identify the location of the clot which was then removed.

Blood flow was instantly restored, preventing long-term brain damage.

The stroke thrombectomy suite was created as the final phase of the £4.5m Kent Interventional Centre at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital

The equipment also allows specialists to treat a range of other conditions including severe internal bleeding, ruptured aneurysms, fibroids and cancer.

Reflecting on his four-day hospital stay, Ojo said: "The team were top-notch, I cannot fault them at all.

"It was a wake-up call for me, I had been told I had high blood pressure but I didn't think it was a big deal so I didn't always take the medication."

Before the suite opened, patients had to travel by ambulance to London for treatment.

Dr Robert Kaikini, consultant vascular and interventional radiologist and the hospital's strategy lead for interventional radiology, said: "Anthony's story is the perfect example of how important this service is.

"Without the procedure, there would be no blood flow to part of his brain and the tissue would have died, leaving him with permanent effects."

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