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Mumbai doctors save Pakistani boy's cancer-affected hand

A young Pakistani boy, who was on the verge of getting his hand severed in his home country, was saved by Indian doctors. After having travelled to Lahore and Karachi in the hope of saving his son's life, 42-year-old Ghulam Abrar Hussain was left disappointed. He finally found respite in Mumbai-based doctors after spending six months in anxiety.13-year-old Abdul Salam had developed bone cancer in his right hand since the past six months.

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A young Pakistani boy, who was on the verge of getting his hand severed in his home country, was saved by Indian doctors. After having travelled to Lahore and Karachi in the hope of saving his son's life, 42-year-old Ghulam Abrar Hussain was left disappointed. He finally found respite in Mumbai-based doctors after spending six months in anxiety.13-year-old Abdul Salam had developed bone cancer in his right hand since the past six months.

While doctors in Pakistan told his family that Abdul's arm would have to be severed to save his life, Indian doctors eventually ended up salvaging it. Salam was in extreme pain for almost half a year after a local doctor in Faisalabad, a town west of Lahore, misdiagnosed his condition. “Not only did the doctor realize that my son had a cancerous tumour in his hand, but he also performed a makeshift surgery on my son and left him high and dry,” said Hussain.

What ensued later for Abdul and his family was nightmarish. “The reports of BCL Laboratory in Faisalabad of my son's biopsy samples erroneously said that my son had no cancer. His arm, however, had swollen by up to four times it's normal size even after the surgery,” said Hussain. Having lost faith on the local doctor in Faisalabad, Hussain travelled with his ailing son to hospitals in Lahore and later Karachi.

“The lab in Lahore determined that my son had cancer of the bone or Osteosarcoma. It was spreading rapidly in my son's body and it threatened to affect his lungs,” he said.

The reports in Lahore-based Shaukat Khan Memorial Hospital determined that Abdul had cancer but they gave up on him citing a shortage of chemotherapy drugs. The distressed family then travelled to Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi, where Abdul's chemotherapy started. However, the doctors were not ready to operate conservatively on Abdul's infected and swollen arm. “The doctors outrightly told us that Abdul's right hand will have to be amputated to save his life.

“After a lot of research, we zeroed in on Mumbai to get my son operated upon for salvaging his limb,” said Hussain. Dr S Rajput, orthopaedic surgeon at private-run Nanavati Hospital in Vile Parle, Mumbai who operated upon Abdul said that the technology to salvage limbs affected with cancer was mostly not available in Pakistan.

While a medical emergency visa should be issued within 48 hours, it took up to three weeks for Abdul and his family to get a visa to travel to India for the surgery. “When I saw Abdul his arm had swollen beyond proportion. We removed the bone affected by cancer from the shoulder up to the elbow. Then we implanted a metal arm in it's place. After the metal bone arm was implanted, his blood vessels and skin were sutured back. The surgery was highly complex and took close to six hours,” said Dr Rajput.

Hussain has spent nearly Rs 10 lakhs for Abdul's treatment in India. “I run a small shop of plastic products and am not very well off. I sold my car back home and borrowed money from my relatives to fund my son's treatment,” said Hussain. But nothing is more precious than being able to see his son write again, he says. Abdul, who has been in India since over ten days now, had to drop a year at school due to the long winded treatment for his cancer. Hussain said that Abdul missed his younger brother and sister back home and wanted to return back to school soon. “Doctors have told us that his hand has been saved and that his bone and muscle movement has been restored. Also his nerves have been saved and so his sensory power has not been affected. Abdul cannot wait to go back home and join school to read and write,” an elated Hussain told dna.

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