Dammit! This makes me mad as hell. Reports say the family was being left money by the 10s of thousands of (no doubt germ laden) visitors. Is that the same as charging admission? The clinic didn’t offer free medical care for such a special case? One would think greed, or compassion would have motivated some soul to get the innocent child to the medical care the precious infant needed.
Did the parents remove the child from hospital so they could make more money? Were they too dumb to realize they could have more money if they kept Kiron alive? Now if Kiron were kept at home, in seclusion and privacy and the parents allowed “nature take its course” with some dignity I’d feel differently. However, armed guards performing crowd control and the acceptance of “donations for medical care” that is not sought, is a horse of a different color.
Kiron’s condition alone would NOT have prevented him from living a healthy and active life. Dicephalic conjoined twins Abigail “Abby” Loraine Hensel and Britanny Lee Hensel have a similar condition and lead an active life and have recently reached the teen milestone of getting a drivers licence. But the Hensel’s live in small town middle America, protected and accepted by their neighbors and peers.
Other unique children recently born in this region have survived infancy. Lali was born with 2 faces. And Lakshmi had 4 extra limbs removed and is learning to walk and live normally.
Perhaps there are too many cultural hurdles in developing Bangladesh for Kiron to have had a chance. No doubt a million stories of suffering, greed, loss and ignorance play out in Bangladesh every day.
Contemporary societal norms encourage respect for a diversity of cultures. To heck with that. If a cultures norms include class and caste distinction, disregard, denial of rights and danger for women and children, greed, violence or ignorance they suck in my book.
Two-headed boy dies after after just 48 hours
www.telegraph.co.uk | Last Updated: 10:20AM BST 28 Aug 2008
A baby boy born with two heads has died, after his Bangladeshi parents took him home from hospital because they could not afford treatments that could have prolonged his life.
The boy was born by Cesarean section on August 25, weighing 12 lbs 1 oz Photo: AFP
Kiron passed away aged just two days after developing a fever and breathing difficulties on Wednesday evening.
The boy had been placed under police protection when more than 150,000 people gathered outside the clinic in the town of Keshobpur where he was being treated.
He was moved to a hospital in the neighbouring city of Jessore, but his parents ignored doctors’ advice to seek further treatment in the capital.
“We wanted to refer him to a hospital in Dhaka but the family was so poor that they could not afford to take him there, so they took him home where he died,” KS Alam, one of the doctors treating the boy, said.
“It was a very unusual case. The boy had one body but two complete heads.”
The baby, weighing weighing 12 lbs 1 oz, was born by Cesarean section on Monday in Keshobpur, 85 miles from Dhaka.
He was able to eat through both mouths, although he had only one stomach.
Doctors had been unable to establish whether he had one or two sets of vital organs.
It had been reported in the local press that many of the tens of thousands of people who gathered outside the clinic had left money for the baby’s family.
