Hyderabad doctors give 70-year-old Somalian farmer new lease of life

HYDERABAD: A 70-year-old farmer from Somalia got his life back to normalcy after a team of doctors from the city reconstructed his urethra which was completely cut-off due to bullet injury.
The patient, Dahir afrah Mohamed, was hit by a bullet near his pubic bone seven months ago when he was caught in a firing between rival groups near his farm in Somalia.The bullet passed through his urethra below the prostate and exited through his buttock. He was taken to local hospital where he underwent a surgery and a tube was pushed directly into his bladder. While he was lucky to have survived as the bullet missed his major blood vessels. But even after the surgery, he faced issues in passing urine.
The patient then came to Hyderabad for further treatment and tests revealed that his urethra had completely cut-off. “As his urethra was completely cut off, we had to devise a plan for this surgery to be successful. To get the two ends together, we cut-off the pubic bone and mobilized both ends and sutured them in a marathon five hour surgery,” said Dr AV Ravi Kumar, consultant urologist, MediCover Hospitals.
This was a very rare case due to its severity and such a complex disconnected ends of urethra. “Patient’s tubes were removed after four weeks and he is passing urine freely now,” added Kumar.