On the road to recovery in Sharjah

Sharjah A three-year-old boy has been given a new lease of life after he underwent surgery last week to correct a congenital anomaly that left him with his intestines outside his body.

During Tareq's recovery at University Hospital Sharjah, his mother Faten Abu Farha, 34, told Gulf News about the shock of learning that her son was born with the condition, and the difficulty they faced in receiving medical attention in their hometown of Al Jalameh — a small agricultural town of 2,000 residents north of Jenin, Palestine.

"When Tareq was born there were only nurses in the delivery room and the doctor was one hour's drive away. When the doctor saw my son, he said the survival rate of children born with this disorder was less than three per cent," explained Abu Farha yesterday as she lay in the hospital ward comforting Tareq, who was experiencing discomfort after the surgery.

Support

With the help from the UAE Chapter of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), which is supported by Shaikha Jawaher Bint Mohammad Al Qasimi, wife of His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, Tareq's journey to get the medical support he needed had a happy ending.

Tareq, she said, had always wanted to be a football player but due to his condition he had to take the utmost care at all times and was unable to indulge in sports. "When he was born, we travelled for his first surgery and the doctors put skin on top of his intestines. So even though you could not see it, there was a large bulge over his stomach," Abu Farha recollected. The surgery was carried out by Professor Hussam Hamdi, vice chancellor for the Colleges of Medicine and Health Sciences and Chairman of Division of Surgery at University Hospital in Sharjah.

"The problem in this case was to create a space to accommodate the abdomen and repair the effects, and so we used a type of mesh to support the abdominal wall.

The post-operative care is of great importance in this complicated operation, which was two and a half hours long," said Prof Hamdi, who said Tareq was recuperating well and was expected to be discharged by the end of the week.

Dream for the future

However, this is not the only surgery that PCRF presented to the University Hospital in Sharjah this week as 12-year-old Heba was operated on to remove nearly 100 kidney stones.

"Heba also has thalassaemia that affects her red blood cells, leading to sickle cell anaemia, and she also has an enlarged spleen and an enlarged liver," said Prof Hamdi.

Prior to Heba's surgery, she had to undergo two blood transfusions before her gall bladder and kidney stones could be removed.

Heba, who is from Jenin, plans to be a doctor when she grows up and dreams of helping other children. She has suffered from her condition for almost nine years.

Doctors have given her the all-clear and Heba is required to continue monitoring her red blood cells and take a daily dose of vitamins until she reaches adulthood.