ichael Suissa underwent a multiple organ transplant - pancreas, intestines and liver.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHsurgery 88(photo credit: )
Eighteen months after two-year-old Michael Suissa underwent a multiple organ transplant - pancreas, intestines and liver - in the US with funding from Clalit Health Services and donations, he has returned to Israel to enjoy a better life.
Now weighing 13 kilos, the boy left the organ transplant center in Omaha, Nebraska, accompanied by his mother, Smadar, his sister Ortal and Dr. Yael Pinsk of Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, who monitored his condition before and during the flight.
Clalit paid $1.5 million for the surgery and expenses for Michael - who is the fifth child who has undergone such complex surgery at the health fund's expense. Israeli doctors assisted a foreign transplant surgeon in performing such surgery six months ago at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikva, and this experience is expected to lead to local surgeons doing it alone.
Michael suffered from a rare congenital defect that prevented his intestines from absorbing nourishment. He still needs surgery here to connect the transplanted small intestine to his own large intestine. He then will have to learn how to eat naturally on his own, as until now he has been fed only via a food tube and has lost the swallowing reflex.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
