Too Young for Surgery
Saturday, March 18, 2017
"A local pediatrician was talking about a case with me the other day about a three day old child who is suffering from a birth defect. This baby girl was born on February 26, 2017 in a remote village of Surkhet. Her father is 20 and mother is 18. She was born carrying a case of ruptured and infected meningocele with meningitis. Meningocele is a defect where there's an incomplete closure of the spinal cord. This happens due to a deficiency of folic acid in the mother during pregnancy. For this, she needs neurosurgery.
"As her family is very poor and cannot afford the treatment, they decided to take her home and wait. The problem is that if she doesn't get the surgery, she would probably die, and even if she gets the surgery, there is high probability of her being physically challenged.
"When the local pediatrician informed me about the case, he asked if we could help her in any way financially. All of us at Kopila agreed that we would help however we could. We rushed her to the local hospital and then decided to take her to Kathmandu. That's where we learned that giving anesthesia is not appropriate for a baby so young. We have to wait until she's 3 months old to have the surgery.
"In the meantime, she's being treated for whatever we can do and I'm in contact with the family. I am so glad that we could help her and wanted to share this story with all of you."
-- Meelan Karki, Health & Wellness Administrator
Thank you, all of you, for enabling us to help young families like this one.