 |
|
Stunted: Mukund |
According to a specialist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the condition is perfectly treatable but the process requires about Rs 20,000 per month, a sum which Mukund's father-a security guard-can only dream of.
"We are basically from Bihar but I settled here only for Mukund's treatment. I earn Rs 4,000 from my job. How can I bear such huge expenses?" a distressed Maheshwar Chaudhary, father of Mukund, asked. "I met the CM of Bihar twice but nothing came of it," he added.
Though AIIMS has a mechanism to provide free treatment and other monetary benefits to emergency patients, there is no provision for those requiring long-term treatment.
NGO seeks funds
A charitable organisation however offered to help Mukund and has collected Rs 80,000 so far. This amount would help Mukund getting treated for four months.
"We want money for the entire treatment," says Rahul of Uday.
Doctor's believe that the brain tumour operation either led to the removal of his growth hormones or these were destroyed by the tumour itself.
After the operation, Mukund seemed completely normal for a few years, but his parents realised that there was some problem as his classmates started to grow taller and develop into teenagers, while Mukund still had the body of a child.
According to doctors, they could kick-start the process of puberty, but doing so would end any hope of Mukund growing any taller. Doctors want him to gain height first.
"It is not difficult for us to make sure his reproductive abilities start functioning, but once that happens, he will never grow further.
So it's important we try and pull his height up by at least six to eight centimeters before inducing the hormones required for reproduction," said an endocrinologist at AIIMS.
