Hospital puts eight-limbed Indian girl on show after op
A two-year-old Indian girl born with four arms and four legs was
paraded before the cameras here Tuesday, nearly a week after a marathon
operation to remove her extra limbs.
Lakshmi’s first public appearance since the surgery was completed
last Wednesday prompted several prominent doctors to cry foul, saying
the child had been put at risk so the hospital could get what one called
“cheap publicity.”
Bundled in a blanket and cradled in her father Shambhu’s arms,
Lakshmi was brought out of the intensive care unit — and greeted by a
pack of reporters, photographers and television crews at Bangalore’s
Sparsh Hospital.
“I request everybody — please don’t rush on to her,” pleaded Sharan
Patil, the surgeon who led the team of 36 medics that performed the
27-hour operation, in which Lakshmi was separated from a headless,
conjoined twin.
“She is only a little girl and we all have to be sensitive to that,”
he said, noting her wounds were still “raw”.
“We are concerned that she shouldn’t be exposed too long to
everybody.”
Lakshmi, named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, was born
fused to the pelvis of a twin that had stopped developing in the
mother’s womb.
In the rare, risky operation, the first of its kind to be performed
in India, surgeons separated her from the organs and body parts of the
other foetus, a condition that occurs once in 50,000 conjoined twin
births. The little girl was awake but looked tired during the press
conference.
The girl has been spending time with her father, mother Poonam, and
older brother Mithelesh over the past two days, responding well to
interaction with her family and hospital staff.
She has been able to eat semi-solid food such as rice pancakes and
soft breads since regaining consciousness and being taken off a
respirator Friday.
Her parents, labourers from a remote district in poverty-stricken
eastern Bihar state, brought her to southern India after a New Delhi
hospital rejected an operation.
Bangalore, Wednesday, AFP |
