When two-year-old Grace Kiarah Cheryl came to MIOT International Hospital recently, she was very ill. Born with biliary atresia, a condition in which the bile ducts are poorly developed or not developed, Grace had undergone a corrective surgery at six weeks in Sri Lanka. However, when she was one-and-a-half, the surgery failed and she became sick again, and her liver badly damaged.
At MIOT, doctors decided to perform a liver transplant, but it was challenging; she had had a previous operation and her blood vessels were narrow. Her mother consented to be her live donor, and in a meticulous surgery, a small portion of the mother’s liver was removed, and transplanted into the child. A special ‘patch’ technique was used to enlarge her blood vessels. “The first week was stormy,” said Pari Vijayaraghavan, consultant liver transplant surgeon.
Another complex case the hospital handled was of a six-month-old Ahmed Hafidh, from Zanzibar, Tanzania. He had jaundice and bleeding after birth. At MIOT, doctors found his bile ducts were destroyed and his liver damaged. The hospital spent some time in getting the baby’s condition to improve, and then, a small portion of his mother’s liver was transplanted.
