Under the knife: Teenager undergoes double valve replacement surgery

AKUH provides family with financial assistance to go ahead with 17-year-old’s treatment.

KARACHI: For the last seven years, Khalid Sathio has been in a lot of pain. He was 10 years old when he first felt a jolt of pain run through his body. Since then he has been unable to walk short distances without being short of breath.

Khalid, was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease,  which made it difficult for him to participate in sports, playing with children of his age and then eventually also interfered with his studies. He had to stop going to school.

He lives with his family in a village 17 kilometres away from Tando Muhammad Khan city. His father, Muhammad Siddique is a farmer and could not afford expensive medical treatment for his son’s fatal illness.

Two years ago, Siddique took his son to Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) for a checkup. According to his uncle, Haji, they did not go back for a follow-up and Khalid’s condition kept getting worse.

“The treatment was too expensive,” said Haji. “This kept holding the family back. A daily wage labourer cannot afford such expensive treatment.” He added that their neighbours and other doctors had advised the family to take the boy to India for the surgery.

In December last year, Khalid’s family brought him to AKUH again. After an evaluation, it was advised that he could go through a high-risk double valve replacement surgery. The family was at first daunted by the thought of paying a large sum of money for the surgery, but decided to go for it once they learnt about the hospital’s patient welfare programme where they provide patients with financial assistance.

After an eight-hour surgery, Khalid was brought out of the operation threatre a healthy young boy. His surgeons claimed that in the next few days, Khalid will be able to lead a normal life.

The rheumatic heart disease, according to Khalid’s paediatric cardiac surgeon, Dr Muhammad Muneer Amanullah, is the consequence of a bacterial infection of the throat which can destroy the heart valves. He said that it was common in the subcontinent and other densely populated areas. He added that between the ages of five or six, if the child has caught an infection, it could develop into the heart disease within five years. In most cases of heart disease in children, he claimed, the defect is present since birth and 85 per cent of these cases need treatment immediately.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2015.