The Sunday News
TV lovers may be familiar with Botched, a reality series which showcases medical procedures gone wrong. A Matobo teenager could easily feature on the programme after his circumcision procedure went terribly wrong.
The 14-year-old boy, who dropped out of school while doing Form One last year after his mother failed to raise school fees, will rue the day he agreed to get circumcised as he has since developed a growth that is not healing.
According to his mother, the boy got circumcised in April when a team of medical experts visited their area under the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision programme.
“These people who circumcise came and they spoke to us about it and our children also agreed as we had seen the benefits looking at the HIV situation in Zimbabwe. We felt that they will be protected, but no one knew it would end this way,” she said.
After the procedure, she said she cleaned her son’s organ just like they were told and all was well. He also went for review three times and the teams were assisting him.
“On the fourth visit for review the teams had left and that is when the wound had gone bad on the outside and I took him to our local clinic where they told me to wash him with salty water and it worked,” she said.
She said after a while he developed a sore inside the penis.
“He developed a wound on the opening of the urethra and I took him back to the clinic where he was treated and we assumed it was just a small thing and would soon heal. But now it started again and it is a chunk of meat that is now protruding from his organ and I am worried,” she added.
The mother said when she went back to the clinic they were told to go where circumcision is done as Silobini Clinic was unable to further treat her son.
At Lobengula Clinic, which is a circumcision site, she was told to visit the Eye Clinic as medical personnel there said they were not in a position to treat him.
At the Eye Clinic she was told to see a doctor and was told her son needed an operation to correct the process and was charged about $800 for the procedure to be done.
“I want my son to be treated but I do not have the money to do so as I am unemployed and my husband is currently serving jail time. He will only be out next year,” she said.
A letter from the doctor she visited states that she needs $644 for the procedure and $239 for the anaesthetic which brings it to a total of $847.
The medical doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a referral from any place attracts a fee.
“Whenever we get patients who come to our rooms we charge them because it is private practice. They have to pay,” he said.
In an interview, the boy said he had trouble in passing urine.
“It is very painful when I urinate and I just want to get assistance so that I do other things in my life,” he said.
He said he also had trouble sitting as he said his organ was painful and “the growth is getting bigger by the day”.
His mother is appealing for help to secure funds for the operation as she is unable to raise the money.
“I have four children; two have been forced to drop out of school. The other two are just attending but I have a huge debt which I have to pay. I do not know what will happen to them,” she said.
“I left them alone at the homestead; they are taking care of themselves while I try to get help here. I am currently staying at my sister’s house in Emakhandeni, but I want to be with them.”
An official from the Population Services International, who run the circumcision programme at the Eye Clinic and Lobengula Clinic, distanced the organisation from the issue, citing confusion over who administers the programme.
“PSI does not operate in Matopo at all, we are not the ones who did that programme but it was a different organisation altogether. There is so much confusion over male circumcision as people assume it is us (PSI) who do it all over since we were the ones who in initiated it. We are not in Matopo,” he said.
The official said when they do any procedure and there are complications they assume full responsibility of the damage.
“If we have any adverse reactions from a procedure we cater all extra costs that are concerned with the patient, we do not send a patient away when we are the ones that will have circumcised them,” he added.
Evidence supports that circumcision reduces chances of contracting HIV by 60 percent. It also reduces the chances of women getting cervical cancer.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends considering circumcision as part of a comprehensive HIV programme in areas with high rates of HIV.
Meanwhile, a South African man who received the world’s first penis transplant last year is reportedly going to become a father.
The man’s first penis was amputated as a life-saving measure after severe complications arose from a circumcision performed as part of a coming-of-age ceremony.
Just six months after the 21-year-old man’s surgery was successful, his surgeon said his girlfriend says she is pregnant, the South African outlet News24 reported.
Doctors say this is clear evidence the “transplant worked”.
Experts were predicting it could take two years for the South African patient to regain all functions, yet tests showed this had been achieved in just four months.
The unnamed man had required a penis amputation when he was 18, following a botched circumcision.
He is still being regularly checked over by doctors, who want to see if improvements can be made to the procedure.
