Father Of Gazan Child Saved From Paralysis: Israeli Doctors Are Miracle Workers

TEL AVIV – Israeli doctors saved a three-year-old Gazan boy from paralysis with a rare procedure, JNS.org reported. 

The boy, named Sliman, walked out of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem on his own after doctors removed a very rare tumor from his chest.

Even though the tumor was benign, it interfered with his respiratory system, was in imminent danger of causing neural damage, and had also injured his spine, thus restricting his movements.

According to JNS.org, there are only a handful of such cases recorded in medical history – and it was the first in Israel.

Doctors decided on a two-stage approach which involved first “stretching” the skeleton with the use of weights in order to facilitate access to the tumor and then excising the tumor as it pressed against the spine in the neck.

Doctors managed to remove part of the tumor that had grown around and inside the spine during the six-hour surgery.

“This was a rare procedure not just on a national level, but on a global level,” said Dr. Joshua Schroeder, a senior orthopedic surgeon at Hadassah.

There is almost no documentation of this kind of repair anywhere in the world. Needless to say that this is the first procedure of its kind in Israel.

The child arrived at Hadassah with obviously limited range of motion due to the malformation and also required close monitoring of the respiratory system because of the tumor that had spread from his chest to his neck vertebrae. We straightened his spine and alleviated the pressure by removing the tumor from around and inside the spine.

Sliman’s father, a resident of the Gaza Strip, said that “the doctors at Hadassah were welcoming and helpful. They appear to be miracle workers, with the help of Allah. We are truly grateful.”