Vietnamese boy with facial tumour to go home without surgery: hospital
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I’d want them to fix this for social reasons, but I suppose they don’t consider that a sufficient justification. I doubt the kid’s gonna have that happy of a life. From CBC.
An 11-year-old Vietnamese boy brought to Canada with the intention of having a large non-cancerous tumour on his face repaired will be sent home without undergoing surgery.
Specialists at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children have decided that Hoang Son Pham, who has a large tumour on his face, “will be able to manage with his condition,” according to a news release from the hospital.
Son arrived in Toronto in summer to undergo a four-month assessment by doctors from the hospital.
It was feared the massive tumour might eventually stop his breathing or cause him to starve to death. But in a statement released by the hospital on Thursday, the health team said it “has concluded that Son’s condition is not life-threatening and that he will be able to manage with his condition in adulthood.”
Children’s Bridge Foundation, an Ontario charity, raised $180,000 to bring Son to Toronto and pay for his surgery after aid workers met the boy in an orphanage north of Hanoi last spring.
“When I saw his mouth getting smaller and smaller, I talked to my colleague at work and I said, we have to do something for this little boy here,” the foundation’s Tan Ngo told CBC News in July.
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Vietnamese doctors lacked the expertise and technical equipment to treat the boy’s tumour, which is caused by a buildup of blood vessels and is slowly ballooning over his mouth. So the group brought him to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children for the assessment.
Earlier this year, doctors hinted they weren’t sure they could do anything to help the boy. They said his condition was more complex than they originally expected.
The hospital carried out diagnostic tests “as well as consultations with experts in plastic surgery, interventional radiology, anesthesia, otolaryngology, dentistry and speech pathology.”
A spokesman for Sick Kids said the medical team believes it is in the child’s “best interest to return home.”
CBC News reported in October 2007 that doctors at the world-famous hospital decided to try a treatment involving a series of injections to shrink the tumour. It was believed the treatment could take at least a year.
The medical team, according to the news release, believes it is in Son’s best interest “not to have medical treatment carried out at Sick Kids.”
Son and his Vietnamese nanny have been living with a Vietnamese family in Markham while awaiting surgery.
The hospital says the two will return to Vietnam.
Any money still in a charity fund for Son will be sent directly to the orphanage for Son and the other children.
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kwak76
10:27 am | Nov 02, 2007I don’t know why they can’t just help him. It seems like a cop out on the Canadian doctors part. He won’t have a normal life and I don’t he can speak clearly because of that tumor growing around his mouth. Hopefully some generous doctor would read this news ad and want to step in help this boy.
Ike
11:01 am | Nov 02, 2007From the picture, that kid doesn’t look all that capable of eating.
jaehwan
11:09 am | Nov 02, 2007“Earlier this year, doctors hinted they weren’t sure they could do anything to help the boy. They said his condition was more complex than they originally expected.”
It sounds like they don’t think they’re up for the job. I’m surprised they didn’t refer him to someone who could. Well, as Kwak mentioned, hopefully some generous worldwide expert (or even just a generous billionaire) will see this and try to get him some help.
Kuroyama
5:13 am | Dec 16, 2007Shame that the Canadian docs just got housed like that. I wonder aloud if it really was just a lack of skill on the Canadians part, or a greater number of People of Color in positions of authority in Boston…?