PATNA: On April 17 this year, when the country was celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, a four-year-old girl lost her voice due to a bilateral vocal cord paralysis after a road accident at Paliganj subdivision in Patna.
Now, almost three months later, the girl, Tayyaba Hasan, has got back her lost voice, thanks to doctors at Patna’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“On the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha, Tayyaba’s uncle on Sunday shared a video of the girl singing a nursery rhyme,” said doctors at AIIMS-Patna, where she underwent treatment for almost two months between April 17 and June 22.
“The miracle has happened because of the dedicated team of doctors at the institute, especially those at the trauma and emergency, neurosurgery, ear, nose and throat (ENT), and the physical medicine and rehabilitation (PMR) departments. Earlier we had to read her lips. She regained her voice a couple of days back and is now audible,” said Md Asif Ansari(22), the child’s maternal uncle, who works in an IT firm in Bengaluru.
Doctors said Tayyaba had developed dysphonia, which is difficulty in speaking due to a physical disorder of the mouth, tongue, throat, or vocal cords, after weaning off from the ventilator following a traumatic neck, spine, and brain injury.
“She was unable to move, drink, eat, swallow and speak, following quadriplegia, a form of paralysis. But now she can move her limbs and speak short sentences. Tayyaba’s physical recovery has been possible following rigorous medical rehabilitation sessions, including physiotherapy, exercise, and speech therapy in the PMR department from May 26 to June 22,” Ansari said.
“My niece had lost her voice around Eid al-Fitr. She got it back around Eid-ul Adha today. This has been possible by the grace of God and the dedicated team of doctors at Patna’s AIIMS, where the treatment was very good and at a reasonable rate,” he added.
Expressing happiness, AIIMS-Patna executive director Dr. Gopal Krushna Pal said, “This was the first case at our institute where we cured a young child with extensive damage to the cervical spine (C3 and C4 vertebrae), respiratory paralysis, with motor, emotional, and speech deficit. With her father dead and mother having suffered multiple fractures in the road accident, the nurses in the PMR department virtually adopted the child.”
“As a single faculty managing the PMR department at AIIMS-Patna, Dr Sanjay Pandey is doing a wonderful job. As of now, my entire focus is on faculty recruitment and improving patient management,” Pal said.
