Medical Tourism – The Road Ahead

Maggy, a very pretty seven year old was the only child of Dorothy – a single parent from Seychelles. She refused to go to school because she was constantly wetting her underwear and felt embarrassed. She had changed three schools, as her friends teased her for smelling of urine. Vince was born with some kind of congenital anomaly of her kidneys and had double kidneys on both sides with four tubes from the kidney to the bladder (normally there are two kidneys with two tubes).

It was suspected that one of her tubes was opening somewhere in her vagina and this was causing the leakage of urine. Repeated examination did not reveal any such opening and it was a perplexing problem for the pediatricians at Seychelles. The mother decided to take her out of the country and seek help. Singapore was an option as many of the Seychelles patients were traveling there for treatment for the past many years.

However the cost of treatment was very high and she could not afford it. The pediatrician had known that a few of the adult patients had traveled to Chennai and had been successfully treated at the Urology department of Sri Ramachandra Hospital. Knowing the mother personally the doctor got in touch with the department on the phone and made enquiries. She spoke to the head of the department Dr.Shroff and was assured that the problem could be solved as the department was fully staffed with various sub-specialist and they also had a full time pediatric Urologist Dr.Ramesh Babu who had trained in the UK. The young lady and her mother traveled by the first available flight and landed in the hospital. The girl was thoroughly investigated and taken up for investigations. Following this she was checked under anesthesia. At first everything appeared normal, however a closer and thorough examination revealed one of the tubes from her left kidney opening next to her vagina close to her skin. An operation was undertaken and the problem was immediately fixed. She went home after 2 weeks with a big smile on her face, for the first time she didn’t have to constantly wear nappies.