Indian girl receives life-saving surgery after donations follow AFP photos
One month after an Indian father told Agence-France Presse that he was praying for a “miracle” to save his daughter’s life, 18-month old Roona Begum received free surgery for her hydrocephalus.
After AFP photographed and wrote about Roona, readers donated money to her family, allowing the child to be treated in a private hospital on the outskirts of New Delhi.
- Indian doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Indian doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Indian doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Indian doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Indian doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on May 2, 2013, Roona Begum, an Indian patient suffering from hydrocephalus, is wheeled to an operating room moments before she had a drain valve in her head changed at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. Doctors have successfully carried out life-saving surgery on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, a neurosurgeon told AFP on May 15, 2013. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure on 15-month-old Roona Begum, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater at a hospital in New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- Indian doctors perform surgery on Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi on May 15, 2013. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Indian doctors wipe iodine on Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid inside the skull that leads to swelling) at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi on May 15, 2013. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Fatima Khatun (left), the mother of Indian child Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus, greets her after surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi on May 15, 2013. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- Fatima Khatun (left) and Abdul Rahman, the parents of Indian child Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus, greet her after surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi on May 15, 2013. Doctors successfully carried out life-saving surgery on Roona, her neurosurgeon told AFP. “The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected,” Sandeep Vaishya said after the procedure, speaking exclusively to an AFP reporter inside the operating theater. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this combination of photographs, Indian doctors prepare Roona Begum, a 15-month old girl suffering from hydrocephalus, for surgery at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. On the right, Indian daily laborer Abdul Rahman fans Roona as her mother Fatima Khatun holds her hand at their hut in the village of Jirania on the outskirts of Agartala, the capital of northeastern state of Tripura. (Sajjad Hussain/Arindam Dey/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on May 2, 2013, the father of Indian child Roona Begum (right), Abdul Rahman, caresses the arm of his daughter moments after she was brought back to her hospital room from the operating theater. Doctors changed a drain valve that was fitted on her head days earlier at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 17, 2013, 15-month old Roona Begum is tended to by doctors and family at a local hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 19, 2013, the father of Indian child Roona Begum (R), Abdul Rahman, tries to figure out an alarm that went off in one of the machines monitoring his daughter’s vital signs. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 18, 2013, the mother of Indian child Roona Begum (right), Fatima Khatun, wipes her eyes in fatigue as she sits next to her daughter’s hospital bed, two days after Roona and her parents were flown into New Delhi from their remote village in the northeastern part of India. (Roberto Schmidt//AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 17, 2013, the mother of Indian child Roona Begum (right), Fatima Khatun, sits with her daughter at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 17, 2013, Indian doctors measure the circumference of Roona Begum’s head during the initial testing of her condition, a day after Roona and her parents were flown into New Delhi from their remote village in the northeastern part of India. Roona Begum suffers from hydrocephalus, a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 17, 2013, the father of Indian child Roona Begum, Abdul Rahman (L) and mother Fatima Khatun, wait in anticipation as they look towards the door of a diagnostic room where their daughter had just been taken in to get an MRI exam at a hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 17, 2013, Indian neurosurgeon Sandeep Vaishya (second left) is surrounded by other specialists as they do an initial assessment of the condition of 15-month old patient Roona Begum at a hospital on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
- In this photograph taken on April 17, 2013, 15-month old Roona Begum is tended to by doctors and family at a local hospital in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)