New Delhi: Imagine stranded in a foreign country up to one year during peak pandemic with your children recovering from serious illness.
This is a terrible experience of the family of 11 children who came to India from the Philippines for liver transplants between August last year and February this year.
They finally managed to go up to the flight home last week after restrictions on trips because Covid-19 subsided.
The youngest among patients aged one year, while seven are between 13 months and 20 months.
One is two and a half years and the oldest is a 15-year-old boy.
While waiting for flight restrictions will be appointed, four children and even contracted Covid.
Their families must extend their stay at hotels and guesthouses in Delhi for several months after children have undergone their medical procedures.
Dr.
Anupam Sibal, Medical Director of the Pediatric Group and Gastroenterology at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, said some parents had lost their jobs back home because they could not report to work in time after being trapped in India.
This causes financial difficulties for them, while other parents struggle during the stay extended with their children.
“One child has a moderate covid symptom that requires hospital admission.
The other three are recovered from viral diseases in the hotel itself, but it is a worrying time for us,” said Sibal.
Dr.
Neeraav Goyal, a senior liver transplant surgeon in Apollo, said it was encouraging to find that even though they used immunosuppressive therapy, the four children infected with Covid did well.
“It strengthens the observations that children do well in handling SARS-COV2, viruses that cause covid,” he said.
Dr.
Goyal explained that liver transplantation operations are needed when patients are at risk of death due to liver disease in the week or the following month.
“Because Covid will not leave in the near future, many of these patients cannot survive from the pandemic period without liver transplants.
That is why the patients, even though there are some challenges, traveling to India,” he said.
“Most children receive donors from their parents.
One of the children accepted it from his brother.” Before the Pandemic, Delhi Hospital regularly recognized hundreds of patients from countries such as the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kenya , Nigeria, Malaysia and the Middle East, where liver transplants are not easily accessible.
Pandemics have prevented patients such as flying to India, with some too vigilant to take risks, considering the incidence of high Indian infections, the doctor said.
“In Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, we care for many patients from the Philippines and South Asia in pre-covid periods,” said Sibal.
“But after many countries are forced by a pandemic to impose trip restrictions and movements, many patients have lost saving care in our country.” Now, with the limit of the trip subside, the doctor hopes for change.
Apollo recently admitted a small number of children from the Philippines who needed liver transplants.