Chandra Maya
The 13 year old girl, Chandra Maya suffered from ectopic bladder, which is a condition where the bladder exists outside of the body. This condition as you can probably guess, made the girl feel handicapped and depressed, as she could not go anywhere without leaking urine. She was studying in the second grade and her father was out of the country doing labour work, as many others from Nepal do as well. Despite that her mother was still not able to support the girl.
Two volunteers Nicole Schouwenaar and Tom Konert, both from the Netherlands got interested in helping the girl, get the operation she needed. She was brought to the hospital were urology surgeon Dr. Mahesh Adhikari estimated that it would cost around 12-1500 USD for the girl’s operation. The two volunteers then collected 164.840 NPRs for the girl’s operation.
She was hospitalized five days prior to the operation, for examinations and so on. But she finally got the operation, which lasted for four hours, afterwards she went to post-op to make sure there were no further complications, and spent in total 13 days in the hospital.
Other than Dr. Laxmi her family (mother and uncle) were there to look after her.
On one of the visits Dr. Laxmi found that the lower portion of the wound was opened and was not healed, she was then brought back to the hospital to get new stitches, which she was told to remove after seven days, and after that, there have been no further complications.
Now the girl has attached a plastic bag and a pipe, which leads the urine into the bag. This bag needs to be changed every seven days, otherwise the girl is able to live a normal life, without leaking urine.
This lifechanging operation would not have been done unless it had been for the two volunteers Tom Konert and Nicole Schouwenaar who raised the money, for Dr. Laxmi on behalf of VIN getting a discount on 40.000 NPRs on the operation, Dr. Mahesh’s donation on 15.000 NPRs and the hospital’s contribution of 25.000 NPRs.
The operation cost ran up to: 119.360 NPRs the remainder of the money will be spent on supporting the girl continuously, to make sure she takes good care of the plastic bag and pipe, and that the family does not need to worry about that.
It seems as though that this girl’s life has changed for the better. Here is what her mother said:
“I am very much happy to see my child in this condition. I never think that it could be corrected. I was always worried about her. She was leaking urine all the time. I had to wash bed sheet and her dress every day. It was bad odor in room and seems unhygienic. She couldn’t go to school and play with friends. Now it is different. It is new life for her and us. I hope she will go to school and play with friends. I have no words to say even thanks to people who have supported this poor child. God bless them.” Goma Khatri (Chandra Maya Mom)
Written by Isabella Jakobsen Danish intern for the health programme at VIN
