BENGALURU: When a soldier, who is paralysed in the ongoing civil war in his country is airlifted to a hospital with bedsores in a distant country for medical treatment and rehabilitation, it tells you of two things: that the war in his country is real and that their medical infrastructure has also fallen casualty to war.Mohammed Ahmed, a 38-year-old soldier from Yemen was airlifted two years ago and brought to Bengaluru for neuro rehabilitation at MS Ramaiah (MSR) Memorial Hospital after he fell victim to gun shot injuries in the ongoing civil war in his country. The injury had rendered Ahmed a paraplegic.
“Ahmed was brought on a stretcher to the neuro centre for spinal cord injury rehabilitation with T9 complete Spinal Cord Injury (SCI),” said Partha Sarathi, chief of neuro-rehabilitation centre at MSR Memorial Hospital. “Ahmed had zero bed mobility and bed sores. He had poor trunk control, impaired basic bed mobility, flaccid lower limbs and impaired bowel and bladder functions. He required assistance for all his daily functions,” said Partha Sarathi.
Ahmed spent a year at the centre. When he left for his country in December 2018, he had gained bladder and bowel control, complete independence with dressing, wheel chair ambulation and his bed sores had healed. “We are told that he now has a desk job in Yemen,” he added.
The Neuro Rehabilitation Centre at the MSR Memorial Hospital headed by Dr Savitha Ravindra has helped more than 50 Yemeni men aged between 20 and 40 years soon after the civil war broke out in the Arab country in 2015. “All of them were brought here with spinal cord injuries either because of landmine blasts or gun shots. They are men in their most productive years, who were wheeled in on stretchers. They have been rehabilitated and sent back with improved abilities such as independent wheel chair ambulation and improved functional mobility.”
The hospital’s association with Yemen goes back to before the civil war, said managing director, MSR Hospital, Dr Naresh Shetty. “Some of our doctors and nurses had spent three years in a military hospital in Yemen during which, we had trained their doctors and nursing staff. This was just before the civil war,” Dr Shetty said.
Mubarak Sarwan Alkatheri (18) from Hadhramaut in South Yemen, was completely bedridden due to a gun shot injury. “Alkatheri was completely dependent on others for all his daily activities. He has been with us for the last six months and is undergoing rehabilitation with physiotherapists, spine surgeons, rehab nurses, urologists and orthotists,” said Saarthi. “Alkatheri is now independent with his dressing, toilet activities, wheel chair ambulation, self-transfers from bed to chair and vice versa and is able to walk interdependently with orthosis and walker,” he added.
Speaking to The New Indian Express in Arabic (translated to English by his Sudanese translator), Alkhateri said: “I cannot describe what condition I was in when I was brought to India. I was lying on the bed motionless. Now I can walk on my feet. I can live as before and I can believe in myself. Shukran (thank you),” said the teenager. He will head home early next month to pursue his studies.