Ahmedabad civil hospital doctors successfully operated on a 13-year-old girl who suffered from a 90-degree bend in her spinal column.
The girl, from Sardi village in Bhavnagar district, started developing the deformity in her spinal cord at the age of five. With time, the angle of bend increased which reached over 90 degrees by the time she became a teen. Her father took her to a couple of private hospitals in Bhavnagar and Mahuva that quoted as much as Rs 8-10 lakh for the operation to correct the condition. The amount was too much for the girl’s farmer father so doctors in Bhavnagar civil hospital advised him to take her to Ahmedabad civil hospital.
Associate professor of orthopaedic department in civil hospital Dr Himanshu Panchal said, “Before doing such an operation, a micro level preparation was needed. It was necessary to figure out which types of X-ray and CT scans would have to be done to ascertain the geometry of the spinal cord. The surgery was itself a big challenge but it was accomplished by our team.”
Dr Panchal said the surgery lasted about five-and-a-half hours, and to ensure that the girl’s nervous system doesn’t get damaged, a neuro-monitoring system was used in the surgery. The most difficult part of the surgery was to rotate the curvature and bring it to the normal anatomical alignment. Doctors used 18-20 screws to get the alignment right and correct the bend — all screws were inserted using the ‘rotation technique’. The spinal cord was also corrected to ensure a proper balance of the body.
Civil hospital superintendent Dr Rakesh Joshi said, “The girl’s operation was conducted under the Rashtriya Bal Suraksha programme in which the entire cost is borne by the central government. This programme has been running in civil for the last five years. Till date, 3,484 children have been operated on in civil hospital.”
In an earlier operation, another girl who had a double curvature of more than 90 degrees was also operated upon successfully at Ahmedabad civil hospital.
