Scottish surgeons give girl free new year

Surgeons from Edinburgh’s Spire Murrayfield hospital are carrying out a procedure to create and attach two new ears to a girl from Trinidad.

Kade Romain, 15, was born partially deaf and without ears, resulting in her being unable to attend mainstream school in Trinidad.

Robina Addison, a Scottish dance teacher, met Kade on a visit the orphanage where she was living. She also visited the day care centre for mentally handicapped children that Kade attended instead of school. She was critical of the centre and said: “I would liken it to a sanatorium here 40 or 50 years ago”.

Ms Addison arranged a temporary visa for Kade and returned with her to Scotland to have the operation carried out.

With Kade not eligible to receive the operation at an NHS hospital and fees for other private options proving too costly, the management at Spire arranged a team of surgeons who agreed to waive the theatre fees and perform the operation, which would normally cost around £50,000, free of charge.

Leading the team of surgeons is Dr Ken Stewart, one of the world’s leading professionals at ear reconstruction.

Dr Stewart was optimistic about the result, saying: "We're hoping to produce an ear which is a very reasonable image of a natural human ear.

"At a conversational distance it wouldn't be obvious that it's a reconstructed ear."

The operation involved the removal of cartilage from between Kade’s rib bones, which was then shaped around a pattern to look like an ear.

The operation is purely aesthetic and Kade will remain partially deaf requiring hearing aids.

One in 6,000 children, 10 a year in Scotland, are born with at least one missing ear and would normally be treated free of charge on the NHS.

Speaking to The Journal, Victoria Brewster of Spire Murrayfield hospital said Kade was recovering well from the first part of this three-stage operation and had already had her bandages taken off. She described Kade as “a fantastic little girl, unaware of all that’s going on around her”.

She added: “Any other 15 year old girl would get this operation free of charge in an NHS hospital so why shouldn’t Kade.”

Kade is set to have her second ear attached before Christmas with the operation due for completion early next year.