Joe Moseti was an 8-year-old boy diagnosed with hypospadias and undescended testis at birth. He underwent surgery for undescended testis at 6 years of age and partial correction of hypospadias at 7 years of age in Kenya. To their dismay, the hypospadias surgery failed. Every parent wants the best for their child and in search of cure for hypospadias, Joe’s father, Henry came across Hypospadias foundation located in Navi Mumbai, India, a centre specialised in cases such as Joe’s for hypospadias results. After thorough research and interacting with team at Hypospadias Foundation, Henry was convinced that we at hypospadias foundation can treat his son.
We studied Joe’s case thoroughly and concluded that before surgery Joe will need few hormone tests and probably hormone injections because the size of his penis was small for his age. Fortunately, hormone tests were normal and we could prescribe hormone supplements to normalise the size of penis. From our past experience, we have learnt it the hard way that treating the size of the penis is important before planning the hypospadias repair. Long term outcome of these children interests us, and we want to provide the best treatment possible with no shortcuts. We planned to assess him every month after hormone injections to see the response.
Following the hormone injections there was improvement in the size of the penis, and corrective hypospadias repair surgery was performed in two stages, 8 months apart. Joe’s parents were extremely happy with the result of the surgery. He had no complications and is now able to stand up like a normal boy and pass urine in a single straight stream.
Henry wanted to say a few words sharing his joy and here is his letter (unedited and in his own words):
Slightly over one year ago, we left your hospital very happy, having seen and experienced your excellent treatment of a severe case of hypospadias that our son had lived with for ten years. It took us some time to get used to the “new” him.
We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the entire MITR Hospital and Hypospadias Foundation fraternity for the excellent work they did and the very professional way they did it. Among many others, we would wish to thank the following for the various ways they assisted us:
- Dr Singal, the hypospadias specialist who performed the surgery. Right from the day we met him and discussed the case, his explanation took a big load of worry off our chest and we looked forward to a successful outcome (which ultimately happened).
- Dr Baviskar, Dr Rajkumar, Dr Usha and the team of doctors that worked on the case. Dr Baviskar’s correspondence helped us settle down in Mumbai quickly. Dr. Rajkumar received us and did a superb and detailed review of the case.
- The nurses were very professional, helpful and quite friendly, making our stay worry-free.
- The team at the reception was very wonderful and very professional. They made us feel quite at home the moment we arrived and guided us through the processes very well. We never felt like we were in a foreign country. The same goes to the accounts staff based at the reception.
- The pharmacy was quite efficient
- We had wonderful moments in the wards, thanks to the staff working there, right from the nurses to the cleaners. There are three ones I would want to single out unfortunately I do not know their names. There was a short elderly lady who used to bring us food. She was very good and encouraging. Though we could not speak the local language and she couldn’t speak English, we somehow managed to communicate and we felt quite at home. There was a tall elderly gentleman who used to serve us tea and kept encouraging us and another gentleman who cleaned the room and kept encouraging us.
- We did not meet theatre staff, but we owe them gratitude. I met a doctor who had worked in East Africa. Though I do not recall his name, I am grateful to him. He participated in the last surgery.
We are sure there are many others we never met but we are grateful to them all.
Finally I am grateful to the hospital itself and the hypospadias foundation for availing information online, that made us know about the hospital and its services. The video clips on your website are invaluable.
I will always recommend the doctors and the hospital to anyone with a similar condition.
We wish you all the very best in all that you do.
It is letters and emails like these which make our day and make our mission fully worthwhile. Please remember, if the hypospadias surgery has failed, it is not the end of the road. With the right treatment at a specialist hypospadias centre, your child can still get cured and live a normal life.
If you wish to reach us, pls send an email to hypospadiasfoundationindia@gmail.com or fill up this contact form. While writing the email, pls put the child’s name, age and country in the main subject line of the email so that we can track it well.