Indian Surgeon Operates From Australia on Patient 10,000 Km Away in Indore

A surgeon in Perth moved his hands, and a robotic system in Indore answered on a patient more than 7,000 kilometres away. For the India-Australia medical corridor, the demonstration was more than a technical trick. It showed specialist healthcare, robotics and telecommunications starting to work across borders in a real clinical setting.

SS Innovations International, Inc. reported that it carried out a long-distance robotic telesurgery between Perth and Indore, using its SSI Mantra Surgical Robotic System and the MantrAsana Tele-Surgeon Console. The procedure was a robotic gastrojejunostomy, performed remotely by Dr Mohit Bhandari, President of IRCAD India and Founder and Director of Mohak Bariatric and Robotic Surgery Centre, while the patient lay in Indore, India. The surgery reportedly took about 3 minutes, with round-trip data and video signal latency below 150 milliseconds.

The demonstration took place during the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons’ 94th Annual Scientific Congress 2026, held at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre from 30 April to 3 May 2026. RACS gave the congress the theme “The Art and Science of Collaboration”, drawing surgeons, scientists, biomedical engineers, researchers, policy voices and industry specialists. The setting matters. This was not shown in isolation. It was presented to a professional surgical audience in Australia, which gave the India-linked technology a serious platform inside the Australasian medical community.

A gastrojejunostomy connects the stomach to the jejunum, the middle section of the small intestine. Cleveland Clinic explains that the procedure can bypass the duodenum or support digestive reconstruction. For readers outside medicine, the point is that this was no symbolic switch-on. It was a recognised surgical procedure carried out through robotic control across a vast distance.

Two connected systems sat behind the procedure. SS Innovations describes the SSi Mantra as a modular, multi-arm surgical robotic system, with multiple robotic arms, an open-faced surgeon command centre, a 3D 4K monitor and robotic endo-surgical instruments. The MantrAsana Tele-Surgeon Console has been described as a portable console built for remote surgical control. Together they let the surgeon in Perth operate on a patient in India in real time.

There is a strong domestic technology angle. Dr Bhandari ran the procedure from Perth on India’s own SSI Mantra robotic system. That matters because India’s medical technology sector is now watched for more than affordability. It is also watched for specialised engineering, surgical training capacity and export potential in advanced healthcare.

Perth was not just where the surgeon stood. It hosted a major surgical congress, which made the demonstration relevant to Australian clinicians, researchers and health technology observers. For people of Indian heritage working in Australia’s medical, engineering, research and hospital systems, the moment brought two professional worlds together, Australia’s regulated healthcare environment and India’s expanding medical technology capability.

A practical access question sits under the headline. Specialist surgeons are spread unevenly, in India, in Australia and across other large countries. Remote robotic surgery, backed by regulation, hospital infrastructure, stable connectivity, trained on-site teams and clear emergency protocols, could carry specialist expertise to patients in places that lack it. It does not remove clinical risk. It shows that hospitals and technology providers are now testing whether distance can be managed with the right systems and safeguards.

The latency figure is one of the most important technical details. In telesurgery, delay is no small inconvenience. It shapes how a surgeon’s hand movement becomes robotic action. Indian Pharma Post also reported latency under 150 milliseconds for the Perth-Indore procedure. Even so, this was a controlled demonstration, not a promise that every hospital network or jurisdiction can match it without comparable infrastructure.

The company has also claimed wider adoption. SS Innovations stated that more than 10,500 cumulative surgeries had been performed using SSi Mantra as of 30 April 2026, including more than 500 cardiac procedures, 170 telesurgeries and 125 paediatric surgeries. These are company-reported figures. They point to growing use of the system, though independent clinical assessment and regulatory scrutiny will stay important as telesurgery spreads.

For Australia and India, the Perth-Indore procedure deserves both interest and caution. It does not mean remote surgery becomes routine overnight. Questions about patient consent, liability, surgeon credentialing, cybersecurity, clinical governance and emergency backup teams all remain. But it does show the India-Australia health and technology relationship moving into more advanced ground.

The most telling part of the demonstration is not the distance. It is the prospect that medical expertise, diaspora links, hospital partnerships and technology built in India can combine in ways once thought too hard to test at scale. For a community that lives between Australia and India, this is a story about surgery, and also about connection, capability and the next serious chapter in bilateral healthcare.