NEW DELHI: Zeejah, a two-year-old Pakistani girl in need of an immediate heart surgery awaits her Indian visa. In 2016, she underwent a complex surgery in India for a big hole in her heart but the complications have returned.
Zeejah and her parents Ussama Aman Khan and Sunnia Niazi of Saqiabad in Pakistan have again applied for Indian visas after doctors in Pakistan and India recommended immediate surgery. Dr Rajesh Sharma of Noida’s Jaypee Hospital, who performed the first surgery on Zeejah, told ET that a large mobile fungal growth has been reported in the left ventricle of the child’s heart, which supplies blood to the whole body and so she is under constant threat.
“It is an imminent risk of embolisation. If this goes to the head then she will get irreversible brain damage which could be fatal. The vegetation needs to be removed surgically immediately,” Sharma told ET. The family is in touch with the doctor via e-mail and phone informing that they have still not got the visa.
The child at four months had for the first time experienced breathing issues in December 2015. Soon a hole in heart was detected. But doctors in Pakistan were not willing to go for a complete heart surgery saying the hole was non-committed. Zeejah’s parents had then brought her to India in October 2016 where a 10-hour-long surgery was performed and the family had returned to Pakistan after 20 days.
Her complications returned last month after the mobile vegetation was detected on the part of the heart which had been operated upon. A number of Pakistani children have undergone complex heart surgeries after their parents approached Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj on Twitter.
Zeejah’s father has also reached out to Swaraj on Twitter in the last 10 days. He has pleaded for the visa saying the condition can embolise anytime “with disastrous consequences to the child” and told Swaraj that “her kind decision on visa can give Zeejah a deserving chance to lead a healthy life”.