Patient: Baby Dhayan

Dhayan’s parents abandoned him when he was just six days old. He was born with a severe facial cleft that had left a gaping hole in his face; his mother could not bear the sight of him.

An orphanage in Bangalore took him in, and it was they who brought him to Dr Rolson Sandeep, a cranio-maxillo-facial surgeon.

Dhayan is now nine months old. Dr Rolson has not only taken it upon himself to fix Dhayan’s facial cleft, he has also become emotionally attached to the baby.

The doctor believes that Dhayan’s disfigurement is one of the most extreme cases he has ever seen.

Understandably, for the first time in his career as a surgeon, he is quite nervous about the operation. He says he feels as if he is putting his own son under the knife.

More from Indian Hospital Revisited