MESTRE - Operated to the brain, during the operation he remains conscious and converses with the doctors in Italian and Nepalese, his native language. It happens at the Angel Hospital in Mestre where neurosurgeons have operated on the brain, when awake, a Nepalese bilingual immigrant. The team conversed with him during the intervention, both in Italian and in the mother tongue, to make sure that the functions of the language were not impaired. An exceptional interpreter participated throughout the 6-hour intervention: she is a young immigrant residing in Oriago di Mira, fresh from the qualification as a social and health worker, who voluntarily entered the operating room for the first time in his life.
The specialists of the Mestre hospital found themselves having to remove, in the patient's brain, an injury due to a vascular malformation; therefore, it was necessary to intervene in a critical area of the brain, where the functions related to language are also located. After mapping the area, the path to resolve the lesion was guided by the patient based on his responses to dynamic tests, such as, for example, correctly communicating the name of the object in the photo, performed both in Italian and in Nepalese .
«For many years our team of Neurosurgery - explains the director of Ulss 3 Serenissima, Giuseppe Dal Ben - has been working on brain injuries in critical areas. The operation is performed on an awake patient, to preserve the functions of those areas: while the neurosurgeons act, the subject responds to predefined tests and in this way allows the surgeons to operate the lesion with the least possible damage ".
"In this specific case - says the chief of Neurosurgery, Franco Guida - intervening on a person normally able to speak two languages, we performed tests and questions to the patient both in the acquired language, Italian, and in the mother tongue, Nepali: in the patient's brain the functions related to these two communication skills reside in different areas, even if related to each other, and it is our obligation to monitor both these areas and their functions ».
The figure of the interpreter was thus joined in the operating room: the contribution of the patient's community of origin was added to the expertise of the specialists. "Preparing the intervention - says the primary - the team of Neurosurgery made contact with the Nepalese community of Venice, which immediately became available, sending us a very good young interpreter". The contribution of which was fundamental: "This girl during the surgery - admitted the primary - proved to be as important as the neurosurgeon, the neurologist, the neurophysiologist, the neuroradiologist, the neuroanesthesiologist. And she was certainly as involved as we are. "
"I have had goosebumps all the time - the interpreter, Sulochana (Dolma) Lama remembers a few days - and I will not forget those hours for the rest of my life. The team stopped when the patient did not respond or poorly formulated the answers. Instead it proceeded if the answers were correct, both in Italian and in Nepali. At the beginning I was afraid. They asked me if I preferred to go out, but I took courage: despite the complexity of the intervention, the climate in the operating room was so peaceful that, as we proceeded, I was fascinated by the extraordinary nature of what was happening. And the fear is gone ».
The intervention was not only perfectly successful as regards the removal of the lesion, but allowed the patient to retain both the native language, the Nepali language, and the acquired language, Italian. «The surgeon needs to share a certain interdisciplinarity. And the neurosurgeon, rather than a doctor in and of himself, is a kind of craftsman of the brain: in order to allow an intervention like this one must get out of rigid patterns - he adds - looking at the whole person and using all the resources we can find, how it happened in this case. Therefore medicine must not stop only at clinical and medical parameters ".
Together with the Nepalese community, the patient, already discharged, expressed his gratitude to the team of Neurosurgery and to that of Neurology, directed by the primary Rocco Quatrale, who collaborated in the operating room. A few days after the intervention, through its own exceptional interpreter, Sulochana, the Venetian Nepalese Association delivered to the primary guide a silk scarf with Tibetan prayers and a thank you plaque «for the work done towards the our compatriot - it is written internally - belonging to the Nepalese community of Venice ».
"We want to offer our heartfelt and devoted thanks for the assistance provided to our compatriot during his treatment path - Chapagain Rajan, president of the Association and representative of the Association, wrote in a letter of thanks addressed to the hospital. eighty Nepalese from the Venetian province - Taking charge of the severe clinical case, the self-sacrifice with which he was carried out by the head physician, demonstrated an excellent team's working capacity, as well as a great humanity, able to face language barriers and a intervention at risk of consequences. Once again, Veneto health care has proven to be an Italian excellence ".
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