HOPE FOR RENALDO

EVEN as Renaldo Cuffy’s parents pursue a lawsuit against the North-Central Regional Health Authority, they have decided to take up an offer from doctors in China to repair their child’s brain.

A team of doctors in Beijing believes Renaldo’s brain can be electrically stimulated so that the three-year-old can have some semblance of functionality. Renaldo was left unable to walk, talk, eat and take note of his surroundings after being hospitalised at the paediatric ward of the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope last year.

With no home locally of having her son live a normal life, parents Meenawattie and Alton Cuffy of Arima, decided to accept an offer from the Stereotactic and Functional Surgery International Hospital in China.

The hospital has already assessed Renaldo’s case and recently wrote to the Cuffys, saying doctors consider their boy a candidate for brain repair. Signed by the hospital’s director, Zengmin Tiam, the letter said doctors would use state-of-the art technology to electrically stimulate the boy’s brain cells.

Also, they will implant brain nerves and regenerate those nerves that were damaged in the hope that Renaldo’s brain will recover. The parents’ medical-negligence case is pending in the High Court before Justice Robin Mohammed. The State has denied responsibility for what happened to Renaldo in February 2017, when he was treated for a cough at the Mt Hope hospital.

The child was hooked up to a ventilator to help him breathe, but while he was being tidied, his endotracheal (throat) tube was dislodged and he was deprived of oxygen. Renaldo suffered brain damage to the extent that he now has to be fed through a tube in his stomach and cannot talk or walk.

Local doctors, in a bid to help the child, submitted an analysis report to the hospital in Beijing earlier this year, noting that Renaldo feels pain if an ant bites him, but is incapable of moving to scratch the itch. After reviewing the child’s case, the Beijing doctors wrote to the Cuffy family and offered good news in a three-page letter, saying minimally invasive brain repair can be done on Renaldo in two parts. The first part is to electrically stimulate the nerves using cutting-edge technology. The second was described as “nerve growth factor implantation.” The Chinese doctors said among patients like Renaldo, whom they have treated, they have a 90 per cent achievement record and those patients had better limb movement, muscle strength and improved mobility.

It also said Chinese traditional treatments such as acupuncture will be used to boost the nerve endings in Renaldo’s brain and nervous system. The cost of the treatment is estimated at US$22,500, but does not include airfare and accommodation.

Meenawattie told Newsday yesterday that the family has opened an account at Republic Bank, 460 030 986 731, if any reader wishes to contribute to offset expenses for their son’s surgery.