One in three cancers diagnosed in Jamaica is prostate cancer. It kills more Jamaican men than any other disease of its kind, and death rates among men of African-Caribbean descent are among the highest ever recorded. Now the University Hospital of the West Indies wants to fight back with a robot.

The hospital is preparing to introduce robotic-assisted surgery for radical prostatectomies, the operation to remove a cancerous prostate, its medical chief of staff told the Caribbean Neurosciences Symposium on June 27. Consultant Neurosurgeon Dr Carl Bruce said the move is part of a wider expansion into cancer care, alongside planned hybrid operating suites and added oncology, radiation, and radiosurgery capacity. The goal, he said, is to give patients “not third-world medicine, but the international standard of care.”

The timing matters. Jamaica carries one of the heaviest prostate cancer burdens in the world. The disease accounts for about a third of all cancers diagnosed on the island and is the leading cause of cancer death among Jamaican men, according to the Jamaica Cancer Registry.

Robotic systems are built for exactly this kind of surgery. In a tight, delicate space, the technology gives surgeons finer control than the human hand alone, control that can help spare the nerves governing continence and sexual function, while typically reducing blood loss and shortening recovery compared to open surgery. UHWI surgeons have performed open radical prostatectomies for more than 20 years; adopting robotics would bring the hospital in line with standard practice across North America and Europe.

What the evidence shows

UHWI has not yet run a robotic surgery program, so there’s no local data yet. But the global evidence is substantial, and it points to two things Jamaica’s health system badly needs: shorter hospital stays and more surgical capacity.

A meta-analysis spanning 230 studies and nearly 4 million cases found robotic surgery cut hospital stays by close to two days compared to open surgery, with fewer complications, readmissions, and deaths. Other large studies echo the pattern: a U.S. database study of more than 368,000 patients found a 2.4-day reduction in hospital stay compared to open surgery, along with lower mortality. In England’s National Health Service, hospitals that adopted robotic prostatectomy cut patients’ hospital stays in half.

That last data point may be the most relevant one for a public system carrying a surgical backlog. The same NHS study found robotic adoption let hospitals increase total surgical output by up to 26%, without a proportional increase in the number of surgeons. Other research shows that as robotic programs mature, operating room turnover time between cases can drop by half, and case volumes can nearly quadruple over a decade.

For a hospital reporting record volumes, more than 103,000 procedures in 2025, with 120,000 projected for 2026, that combination of faster recovery and higher throughput is the real pitch: a robot that helps clear a waiting list, not just a headline piece of equipment.

The bottleneck isn’t the machine

Dr Bruce said UHWI is still evaluating which robotic surgical platform best suits its needs, with procurement ongoing. Training won’t cover every doctor; it will be rolled out by speciality, starting with urology, gynaecology, general surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery, through a mix of overseas fellowships, local training at UHWI, and eventual integration into residency programs.

But Health Minister Dr Chris Tufton, who sat on the panel, pointed to a different obstacle, one no machine can fix: Jamaican men still won’t get tested. A PSA blood test and physical exam sharply improve survival when prostate cancer is caught early, but screening rates among Jamaican men remain low, held back by fear of both diagnosis and treatment.

Bruce set the robotics investment against a broader overhaul underway at the hospital, including electronic records and a more transparent waiting list. He closed with the line he wanted delegates to take home: “Your health is your wealth.”

The symposium has since concluded at Half Moon Resort.