She has survived what rarely anyone has the misfortune of sustaining even before her birth --a lethal bullet wound. Both her and her mother's lives hanged in the balance when a stray bullet from infighting armed youth groups of the ruling party in Magura, a south-western district of Bangladesh, ripped through her mother's lower abdomen on July 23, 2015. The eight-month pregnant mother was rushed to the district hospital where it became clear that her still unborn daughter too was hit in one of her shoulders before causing abrasion to an eye.
After two hours of cesarean operation Surayia was prematurely delivered in a most critical condition. The little soul still mastered enough strength to cling to life during her seven-hour odyssey to the country's largest healthcare facility, the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) in capital Dhaka. She was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital and a medical board was formed for her treatment.
Her mother could not accompany her for understandable reasons. Doctors at Magura had to keep her under observation. The woman's physical condition would not permit her such a long journey. Only an air ambulance could bring the mother and daughter together to the capital. But for Suraiya and her mother Nazma, it was a luxury at its most expensive. So the mother had to stay back in Magura until she recuperated enough to make the journey. Doctors at the DMCH, however, were of the opinion that the child needed her mother's breast milk for her recovery.
Nazma was brought to the DMCH a week later. But still she had to stay away from the girl for fear of infection. Her breast milk was collected and fed to the child. Later on she was allowed to breastfeed her child a few times a day under the guidance of the child's pediatrician there. On August 16, the mother and daughter were finally reunited. The doctors decided that Suraiya was strong enough to be with her mother. They shifted her to the cabin her mother was staying at. Yet the danger was not over altogether. Under the watchful eyes of her doctors another phase of her recovery began.
Credit surely goes to the team of physicians who operated on the wounded mother at the district hospital and then urgently sent the baby to Dhaka. Also hats off to the physicians at the DMCH, who promptly formed a medical board and made good use of their knowledge of medical science and experience for Suraiya's treatment. The brave baby girl has made her own point by defying death in its face. First she tentatively started gaining weight and then made further progress, giving her doctors hope that she has come to the world not to succumb to the wound yet. Her condition was closely monitored. The nation that wished her well too was kept informed of her slow but sure recovery, courtesy of the media --both print and electronic.
Finally the day came when the doctors decided that the girl recovered well enough to make a return journey home. It was a moment of jubilation and the physicians who took care of the baby and her mother did not want to miss a happy and brief celebration of the farewell. The health minister himself was present on the occasion to underscore the good works done by the doctors. After 26 days an ambulance carried the baby and mother to Magura where her family and neighbours waited anxiously for her return.
The little one's initial struggle and painful journey of life to the world is symbolic of the hard reality children are pitted against in today's Bangladesh. There are incidents galore where children usually of poor labour parents have fallen victim to abandoned cocktails or bombs which they picked up thinking those were toys they could play with unaware of the danger. Many such children have lost their eyes, palms, hands or other organs when such crude bombs went off. Random use of explosives and lethal weapons in political or other rivalries is so common that Bangladesh society has become hostile to children --no matter if it is by default.
Since this incident, a number of children of tender age have been tortured to death across the country. Child repression shows no sign of coming to an end. Brutality cannot be allowed to stay as a stigma with this nation any more. This society needs a prolonged therapy.
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