Equipped with sophisticated equipment, Supercare Hospital effortlessly removed a metallic cross from the throat of a five-year-old child from Itanagar that she had accidentally swallowed on January 7.
The girl had been taken by her family to two hospitals in Itanagar, before being referred to NEIGRIHMS and then Supercare where the operation was performed successfully yesterday.
The family initially thought that an old chest infection was reoccurring but x-rays showed otherwise, the mother of the five-year-old told Highland Post today.
She said that, incredibly, the doctors at Supercare were able to remove the sizeable crucifix that the child had accidentally swallowed and she has now fully recovered and has begun eating again. However, the family is still at a loss as to how and where the girl got the cross from in the first place.
“I am very thankful to the doctors and staff of Supercare Hospital, especially Dr RS Thangkhiew,” the child’s uncle, Takar Kino, said. However, the family has been financially burdened by the episode, having incurred Rs 80,000 in expenses so far, without even taking into account this hospital’s charges.
Dr Thangkhiew, the senior consultant gastroenterologist, hepatologist and interventional endoscopist, termed the case unique.
“We have come across similar cases, like coins, bones and big seeds getting stuck but this is unique where a five-year-old had swallowed a crucifix with a width greater than the diameter of the oesophagus where it got stuck,” he said, adding that one such similar event saw a six-month-old baby swallow her mother’s earring.
The doctor said that they used an endoscopic procedure to visualize it and a CT scan to measure the width of the crucifix. Injections were also used to relax the muscles in the neck before the medical team successfully pulled out the crucifix.
“The preparation took us about half an hour while it took just 10 minutes to pull the crucifix out of the child,” the doctor said. “The fact that Supercare has successfully taken care of many such cases is because we have the finest types of equipment and, in the North East, maybe the best endoscopic equipment and around 12 endoscopes for various procedures,” he added.
