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Eight-year-old Sajjad suffers from an incurable skin condition called the Bulbar disease. His painfully thin limbs are red and raw with lesions that erupt everyday.
The doctors at Salmaniya Hospital were shocked to see his condition, his father informed us. Sajjad was born perfectly healthy, he told GulfWeekly’s interpreter, but a couple of weeks later he developed this debilitating disease that has left him in wheelchair-bound.
“Skin specialists and orthopedic doctors have studied Sajjad’s case and treated him accordingly. For this kind of disease treatment is mainly symptomatic.
Regular dressings and medication was provided for his skin lesions. Sajjad has worked with physiotherapists and our prosthetic department has made special shoes for him so that he can flex his knees,” says Laila Al Asbai, head of the patient advocate department at Salmaniya Hospital and co-coordinator for the care of Iraqi children.
But Sajjad’s father has not given up hope for his son. For him Sajjad was born a “normal child” and he can be normal again.
He wants him to go to school and enjoy all the things other children his age experience. “I am told that there is a doctor from France who is coming to Bahrain next month - if only we could come back and he could study Sajjad’s case and cure him,” he says.
Sajjad listens to his father all this time, his eyes following his friends playing in the background.
