Meet Iqra - a resident of Larkana Singh until recently was a typical 14-year-old teenage girl in grade 7 who enjoyed listening to Bollywood music and playing with her siblings.
Last month, her world changed. She suddenly developed an intense severe headache, the worst imaginable. Throughout the day, she became tired, lethargic, and couldn’t keep anything down. Her parents, a poor laborer and homemaker, took her to the local district hospital, and a CT scan of the head confirmed bleeding in the brain due to a ruptured brain aneurysm.
Bleeding in the brain due to a ruptured brain aneurysm is one of the most lethal conditions known to humankind. Half of the victims die immediately and do not make it to the hospital. Of those who make it to the hospital, another half do not leave it.
The standard of care dictates admission to a neurocritical care unit at an advanced comprehensive stroke center with immediate attention to blood pressure control, elevated pressures in the head, and permanent treatment of the aneurysm before it bleeds again.
Iqra received none of that.
Her journey took her from Larkana to Hyderabad and JPMC in Karachi. An angiogram – which is a catheter-based study to look at blood vessels in the brain - performed at JPMC confirmed a complex brain aneurysm. However, none of the public sector hospitals in the entire province of Sindh can perform minimally invasive endovascular aneurysm embolization – essentially a catheter-based procedure whereby the aneurysm is treated using platinum coils, which are placed inside the aneurysm negating the need for open skull based surgery.
Iqra waited an entire month and went through the indignities of delayed and subpar care, leading to a brain injury that has since compromised her ability to walk. Fortunately, her aneurysm did not rupture again – which could have deadly consequences.
Our team at Karachi Stroke Initiative – a nonprofit based in the USA, was reached by Dr. Irfan Lutfi, consultant radiologist at NICVD. We arranged for Iqra to be transferred to Ziauddin Hospital Clifton, where the required endovascular treatment was performed. Treatment was fortunately successful, and Iqra started improving right away. She’s now back home in Larkana, recovering from her ordeal.
Our Patients
Although we typically don't take photos of our patients and their families, many of those we have treated have made special requests for it. Visiting physicians from abroad have consistently been impressed by the gratitude and appreciation shown by our patients and their families for the care they receive.
All of these photos have been shared with the permission of the patients and their families.
