This year festival of lights will be a sparkling one for the six-year-old Dhanesh Vasave from Surat. This cherubic kid, gleefully stood the ground for more than three years to survive an elongated medical battle to win back his happy childhood.
Interestingly, Diwali which is falling on November 14 this time is also celebrated as Children’s Day! Dhanesh was diagnosed with a congenital ailment of posterior urethral valve which led to kidney failure at a tender age of three. He was operated upon for corrective surgeries but resultant kidney failure forced him to compulsorily go for dialysis. Sadly, this was also beginning of a long medical tribulation for this young kid. A highly skilled team of paediatric nephrologists at Institute of Kidney Diseases & Research Centre (IKDRC) took up this challenge who overcame it with flying colours.
“Our team decided to go for peritoneal dialysis as per established norms of paedriatic nephrology but unfortunately due to onset of infection we have to remove the catheter to prevent complication,” Dr Kinnari Vala, Department of Paedriatic Nephrology at IKDRC said. The team was left with the sole option of haemodialysis, a procedure designed for adults. The procedure was done around the neck region through a temporary catheter to ensure proper flow of blood to reach the dialyzer. But this effort also had gone in vain, once more due to infection.
“Our third attempt to create an AV fistula in the upperarm of an artery to a vein worked and Dhanesh had a problem free dialysis till he was operated upon last year for kidney transplant through cadaver programme,” added Dr Vala.
In last one year, Dhanesh’s weight has doubled from 10 kg and gained a normal height with good cognitive abilities to join a regular school. “Under the school health programme run by Government of Gujarat every child diagnosed with any vital organs ailment is entitled to a free of cost treatment at IKDRC irrespective of their socio-economic background,” explained Dr Vineet Mishra, Director-IKDRC.
Dr Mishra informed that School Health Programme is one of its kind programme anywhere in India to guarantee a healthy childhood for all children below the age of 18. Any child who is a domicile of Gujarat state could avail free medical consultation, investigation, surgery, dialysis and transplantation services at IKDRC. “As per statistics available for every ten chronic kidney disease (CKD) adult patients in India, there is one CKD child,” informed Dr Mishra emphasizing on the point that an early diagnosis leads to an early referral for better access to medical intervention.
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