Donor support makes surgery possible for Lockport patient
Sylvia Molnar and her husband Joe: “If it weren’t for the robot, this would have been a totally different story.”
Now that robot-assisted surgery has saved her life, Sylvia Molnar can reflect on a tense past and celebrate a few words shared in the past tense.
“Dr. Alon Altman called me following my surgery with my test results,” recalls Molnar, a resident of Lockport. “He said ‘you had cancer’. Had! The past tense! The relief I felt was unbelievable.”
Molnar, now 62, had been diagnosed with endometrial cancer in 2022. While initially slow-growing, her cancer became more advanced and her intermittent bleeding became more frequent. With complex medical needs, she was not a candidate for conventional forms of minimally invasive surgery, and open surgery would have been far too risky for her.
“I just wanted it out,” Molnar says. “Knowing that I had cancer inside of me. It was horrible and stressful. It felt like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.”
Molnar was treated with a combination of drugs, but the cancer progressed and her stress intensified. The future seemed bleak. And then, a new possibility emerged.
Through donor support of the HSC Foundation’s Operation Excellence campaign, HSC had recently acquired Manitoba’s first surgical robot—the da Vinci Xi. In its first year alone, it was used in 25 gynecological oncology cases where no other surgical option existed. Molnar was one of those patients.
“I had heard about the robot on the news,” she recalled. “When Dr. Altman told me I might be a candidate, it was the first time in years that I felt real hope.”
That hope was rewarded. For Molnar, the donor-funded robot made the impossible possible.
The robot enabled Dr. Altman and his colleagues to work through very small incisions, controlling the four highly precise arms of the robot from a nearby console, all the while seeing Molnar’s anatomy magnified in high definition.
During the September 2025 hysterectomy, Molnar’s doctors discovered that the cancer had progressed further than expected. But crucially, it had not spread beyond the uterus.
“If I had waited longer, it would have been a totally different outcome,” she said. “That robot came just in time for me.”
Because of the minimally invasive nature of the surgery, Molnar was up and walking the very next morning, and discharged in the afternoon.
“I could not believe it,” she said. “It felt like a miracle. I didn’t feel like I’d just had major surgery.”
Today, Molnar is cancer-free and focused on a future with her children and grandchildren, and playing a lot of cribbage with her husband Joe.
“I’m not ready to leave my family yet,” she said. “I want to be here for everything.”
She is deeply grateful for Dr. Altman and the entire HSC team, and to the Foundation donors who made the technology possible.
“If it weren’t for the robot,” she said, “this would have been a totally different story.”
The da Vinci Xi surgical robot that saved Sylvia Molnar’s life was funded through the HSC Foundation’s Operation Excellence campaign. With your support, HSC has been able to invest in the surgical robot and other leading-edge surgical technology. Please donate so that HSC can always deliver tomorrow’s health care, today. Click here to learn more about Dr. Altman’s work in robotic surgery at HSC Winnipeg.
