This Article is From Feb 19, 2012

Baby Falak to undergo fifth surgery

Baby Falak to undergo fifth surgery
New Delhi: Two-year-old battered baby Falak, who is battling for life for the past 33 days at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, is likely to undergo another life saving surgery, doctors said on Sunday.

This is being attempted by doctors attending on her after they found no infection in the sample culture of her brain.

Doctors have earlier conducted four life saving surgery on Falak since her day of admission in the AIIMS Trauma Centre on January 18.

"This will be the fifth life saving surgery that we will conduct at midnight or later," said Dr Deepak Agarwal, neurosurgeon with the hospital who has been treating the girl.

"No infection in the brain sample in the past three culture reports implies that her condition is improving and this surgery can be conducted without any harm to her life.

"But she continues to remain critical but stable and still needs ventilator support," he said.
Falak was brought to the hospital in a battered state with severe head injuries, broken arms, bite marks all over her body and cheeks branded with hot iron.

"We will conduct shunt surgery whereby we will make a connection between the brain and the spine so that water that gets accumulated in the brain is drained out through the spine.

"This will in a way help to check the infection in her whole body. We were waiting for the infection in the brain to come down so that we could conduct the surgery with no harm to her life," Dr Agarwal said.

Doctors are, however, not hopeful of Falak leading a normal life even after she recovers from her injuries.

"The infection in her brain has overstayed. It must have affected parts of her brain and this might in turn deprive her of a normal life in future," he said.

On February 14, Munni, a 22-year-old woman who claimed to be her mother, visited her for the first time at the AIIMS Trauma Centre.

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