Chennai: A two-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil refugee boy was admitted to the government Institute of Child Health (ICH) at Egmore on Saturday for a complicated surgery to correct a congenital ailment in the throat area that caused continuous excretion of fluids. With the threat of serious infection looming large, specialists at the children’s hospital have fixed Tuesday for the surgery after subjecting the kid to various tests and getting the green signal from the anesthetist.
“My son Raghavan had this swelling at the top of the neck from the time of birth. It moved down a bit and some fluid oozed out all the time. We spent all our savings and borrowed heavily for treatment by private doctors in Ramanathapuram.
When nothing worked, we took the boy to the Ramnad government general hospital where the doctors told us the boy must undergo surgery at the earliest and recommended we approach this hospital at Chennai, which they said is the best and the biggest children’s hospital in the country”, said Rasalingam Premkumar, who belongs to Trincomalee in east Lanka and had landed by boat at Rameswaram with his wife and a little daughter in 2006. Their two boys, born in the Mandapam camp, are now aged six and two.
Apart from the small cash doles and subsidised rations given by the officials at the Mandapam camp, Premkumar, in his early 30s, earns a little money as ‘coolie’ on fishing boats in that coastal village. “I am now left with just '500. Some good samaritans have promised help”, he told DC at the fifth-floor ward where Raghavan has been admitted. “We hope to take the kid home healthy. We are praying”, said wife Ramjitha, trying best to avoid breaking down.
Among the ‘good samaritans’ was state health secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan, who happened to be on a visit to the hospital and spotted the distraught refugee family near the entrance area. After hearing Prem’s sad tale, he offered to help him with accommodation and also told the doctors to help with special care.
Hospital registrar Dr S. Srinivasan said all the pre-surgery procedures would be done using the state-of-the-art facilities at the hospital. Senior surgeons would evaluate the kid on Monday and perform the operation the next day.
The surgery could cost over Rs 3 lakh if done in a private hospital, but will be done free for Raghavan. It is a complicated procedure as the long tract of the bronchial sinus must be tracked and removed completely to ensure that infection does not recur. “We hope to take the kid home healthy. We are praying”, said the boy’s mother Ramjitha, trying hard to avoid breaking down.
