>
>
> Henry Marsh is handy with tools.
>
> His favourite hobby is woodwork: "I love to work with my hands," he says.
>
> That is just as well, because when not working with the lathe, Henry is
> wielding scalpels in the operating theatre as one of the UK's most
> respected neurosurgeons, or, sometimes, boring a Bosch drill into the
> brain of a conscious man.
>
> Fifteen years ago, Henry visited Ukraine to give a series of lectures on
> brain surgery.
>
> He was shocked by what he witnessed.
>
> Decades of under-investment in medical services in the former Soviet
> state
> had left it with little infrastructure or expertise in neurological
> conditions.
>
> Horror film
>
> Patients with the kind of benign tumours which would be quickly
> identified
> and excised in the UK had been left untreated with terrible results.
>
>
> "It was like being in a horror film," he recalls, as he watches home
> video
> images of the huge tumours growing on the heads of the patients.
>
> On his trip, Henry met one Ukrainian surgeon who was trying hard to make
> a
> difference.
>
> Igor Petrovich had been enduring constant threats and harassment as he
> tried to reform his department at the Military Hospital in Kiev.
>
> Petrovich combines a revolutionary zeal with a droll wit: "That is the
> problem with what we do," he has remarked to Henry, "We can often kill
> people."
>
> He impressed Marsh so much that Henry brought him to London for further
> training.
>
> Ever since that fortuitous meeting, Henry has been visiting the Ukraine
> at
> least twice a year to share his expertise and undertake complex
> operations
> with Igor.
>
> He normally arrives bearing gifts - disused medical equipment from St
> George's Hospital, Tooting - often packaged in boxes made in his shed at
> home.
>
>
> He is struck by the wastefulness of the NHS: a drill bit he delivered to
> Igor has been used for ten years. In the NHS it was thrown away after a
> single use.
>
> The lack of equipment in Ukraine has forced the surgeons to improvise
> when
> it comes to some of the most basic surgical tools.
>
> Last year, Marian Dolishny discovered just how effective Henry's
> impromptu
> surgical methods can be.
>
>
> The young man from rural Ukraine had a tumour pressing on his brain, and
> was developing epilepsy. Untreated, blindness and then death would
> follow.
>
> Surgery to remove the tumour would be a cinch in Henry's state of the art
> operating theatre in London.
>
> In Kiev, though, it was a different matter.
>
> As they left Igor's flat on the morning of the surgery, bearing a
> home-made hose for the anaesthetic, nerves were beginning to jangle.
>
> "I'm not tense," Henry snapped at Igor. "You just keep on bringing me
> harder and harder cases - bloody Kossaks."
>
> Patient awake in surgery
>
> Lacking the advanced anaesthetics needed to operate on Marian without
> risk
> of paralysis, Henry and Igor had only one option - to operate whilst
> Marian was still awake, testing his ability to move as he operated.
>
> That meant Marian was fully conscious for the most dramatic part of the
> operation, when Igor used a Bosch drill bought in the local market to
> bore
> four holes into his skull.
>
> His face remained remarkably impassive, though when asked about the noise
> his response was telling: "I can't hear what you're saying".
>
> Marian's surgery was a success, and Henry and Igor were delighted.
>
> Not all Ukranian medical stories are such fairytales.
>
> Henry is haunted by the case of Tanya, a young girl whose tumour
> ultimately defeated him.
>
> He still likes to visit her grave when he is in the country, and meet up
> with her mother Katya.
>
> "I don't know if I'll be thinking anything when I die," he said, "but if
> I
> am I'll be thinking that what mattered most was trying to help Igor and
> his patients, and I'll think about Tanya and Katya.
>
> "What are we if we don't try to help others? We are nothing. Nothing at
> all."
>
>
>
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Does exactly what it says on the tin
