200 kids with ortho problems await surgeries with hopes

They are 200 of them waiting for a medical miracle that promises them that they could take those first steps of their life unhindered.

Abishek, 15, hopes his bones will no longer break everytime he tries to chase a puppy down the street and trips.

The boy, studying class ten, suffers from brittle bones, a genetic disorder that causes frequent fractures, and is waiting for a surgery that promises to make his bone strong.

Like him, Gururaj, 8, from Belgaum is waiting to know how it means to land your feet on the ground and walk straight. Born with club feet, he is waiting to take those first steps of his life without having to bend his thighs or knees.

The two are among the 200 children set to undergo complex sugeries to correct bone deformities during a free week-long camp to be conducted here from tomorrow by 30 expert surgeons from India and around the world, spearheaded by city-based Dr Sharan Patil.

Patil, who shot to global fame after a 27-hour surgery that transformed the life of two-year old eight-limbed Lakshmi, nicknamed Durga for sporting extra limbs, is now hoping to transform many more lives."We were flooded by pleas of hundreds  of parents after Lakshmi's operation (in 2007)", said Patil who heads Sparsh Hospital, a super speciality one in the field of orthopaedic surgery, and the Sparsh Foundation, its charitable division.

Patil, who knew of colleagues treating the underprivileged in their own small way, decided to bring them under one roof to perform complex surgeries free of cost.

He approached his friends in UK and US to chip in and they have decided to travel down to India at their own expense to perform the surgeries that would correct some of the gross deformities that cripple children ranging from as young as two months to 15-year old. The team of 30 surgeons include 16 from UK and two from US.

"Some have dislocated hips, some have congenital pseudo arthorosis causing bones to break, some have neglected club feet, some have one leg longer than the other", Patil said.

"The surgeries are expected to be life transforming where it would help them go one notch up. We want those who are just household walker to walk on the street, the wheelchair to become household walkers. Those dependant, to become self-reliant or take care of themselves, at least personal hygiene. The surgery must be able to make a shift in their life," he said.

When the camp was announced, it was flooded with 787 children seeking relief in just one camp, forcing the organisers to drop the subsequent camps. "People living here contacted their relatives, friends acquaintances living in Rajasthan, Orissa, Andamans, Tamil Nadu", he said.

"It was a mind boggling number of requests, but we screened the cases. One third of them were inoperable and were eliminated. Those who had resources to go in for these surgeries were also eliminated", said Patil.

The 200 were selected on the basis of them being medically challenging, needed expensive infrastructure and highly skilled and trained expertise of leading doctors.

The normal cost of conducting 200 surgeries would run into to Rs8crore to Rs9crore, but the same would now cost Rs one crore with experts waiving their charges, he said.

He said as per the 2002 census, nearly three per cent of new borns were found to have mental or physical disability. The physical disbability was not just due to malnutrition but could include genetic factors as well.

The greatest hurdle in India was the availability of very highly skilled and trained paediatric surgeons, he said.

The event was aimed encouraging more doctors to sign up and commit at least a week in a year to such work, he said.