6 Feb 2010

Haiti baby in urgent need of surgery

Landina will die unless she can get an operation abroad to remove the dead bone from her skull where she suffered a serious burn injury. But the authorities will not let her go.


The bone in Landina’s skull must be replaced with a titanium plate in a complex procedure.

Her agonising wails are hard to listen to. It is a desperate cry for help from a life that is only just beginning, but may soon end.

The man dressing Landina’s head wound is a British surgeon. David Nott is in Haiti as a volunteer.

The vascular specialist from London has been tending the child for two weeks, since she arrived at the Medecins sans Frontieres hospital.

She was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hospital. Her mangled right arm had to be amputated. But she has lost much more than that – her mother is missing, presumed dead.

Landina has no known family and there are only volunteers such as Mr Nott to comfort her. Since he arrived at the MSF hospital, Mr Nott has performed about 10 operations a day on earthquake victims who suffered trauma and crush injuries.

He has also performed life-saving surgery on gunshot victims. Witnessing Landina’s heart-wrenching pain and that of other children has clearly affected him.

“To be honest I find the whole experience extremely distressing, going around the wards, seeing children with amputated arms and legs screaming for their mothers and fathers, when there are no mother and father because they have died in the earthquake,” he said.

“It’s almost one of the most emotional experiences I have ever had.”

He said: “Because the bone is dead there is significant risk of infection not only systemic infection but brain infection.

“The child needs urgent treatment in a neurological centre.”

He says he has created a special bond with Landina and he is determined to save her.

One of the few places that performs the complex operation she needs is the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. But it is a major challenge.

Channel 4 News has learnt that Mr Nott’s requests to move her out of the country have been turned down by the US military because she has no papers. But he will not give up.

The problem is how to get the child from here to London at time of great sensitivity over Haitian children, especially orphans, following the scandal over the American missionaries who are now being held on child trafficking charges

Mr Nott said: “With all the paper work and legal problems I don’t know precisely how we will do it but we are not going to stop.

“I have written to the Haitian government to see whether or not they can expedite this to ensure she gets on a flight hopefully to Miami and then hopefully on to the UK.”

A French doctor at the MSF hospital who works with Mr Nott has volunteered to travel with the child to the UK to look after her en route and to act as the child’s guardian.

Time is running out for Landina. Mr Nott believes they have a window of 10 days, possibly only a week to save her; such is the risk of brain infection.

For Landina the clock is now ticking. If this tiny child, who has already suffered so much, does not get help and fast she may well become another needless casualty of a disaster that has claimed so many.

In an earlier report the child was incorrectly referred to as Landima.

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