A Saudi neurosurgery specialist, Hani bin Talal al-Johan has successfully removed the brain tumor of a young Kuwaiti girl at Colmar Hospital in France.
The girl whose brain tumor was getting worse had had her earlier surgery schedule canceled by a renowned French surgeon in Paris after the girl had completed all her check-ins and procedures. The surgeon canceled the operation at eleventh hour over fear of coronavirus.
When the surgeon was not willing to go ahead with the operation, as a matter of emergency in the girl’s case, several attempts were made by a Kuwaiti medical attaché to request other renowned hospitals in France to perform the surgery but none was ready to look into the emergency case.
In the struggle to find an expert surgeon to operate on the young girl,the girl’s brother and the Kuwaiti medical attaché contacted Al-Johani on social media.
“I proposed having the surgery performed at the hospital where I work,but the hospital’s administration refused, as it is located in an area which is among the most affected by the coronavirus. But I persisted for two weeks, however, and the administration eventually agreed to conduct the operation,” Al-Johani said.
Al-Johani said that the operation was performed under stress as he did it on his own without support from the hospital. He also said that the operation which took seven hours was indeed a riskiest one because the tumor was at the bottom of the skull and close to the blood vessels of the brain.
According to Al-Johani, after the operation the patient could move all her limbs and she left the hospital four days after the operation which was far short of expected ten days she was supposed to stay in the hospital.
Al-Johani, a faculty member of Qaseem University in Saudi Arabia,is an accredited surgeon in France and has conducted several successful surgeries without supervision.
Al-Johani went to France for a three-year fellowship in Neurosurgery at the University Hospital in Strasbourg after which he joined Colmar Hospital as a surgeon.
