In a rare, medically advanced case, a nine-year-old was recently diagnosed with a congenital anorectal malformation known as recto-vestibular fistula, a condition typically identified and treated within the first few days or months after birth. What makes this case exceptional, however, is not just the diagnosis but the fact that the condition went untreated for eight years.

Not treated early…

“Though she would pass stools every day, she would cry. For the first six months, we didn’t understand. Later, when I discovered she was passing stool sfrom a small opening just below her vagina, I realised that this was not normal. We immediately took her to a civic hospital where the doctors told us that she could not be operated on as she was too weak and that her haemoglobin levels were also quite low. We waited a few days and approached the doctors at the civic hospital again. They asked us to visit another state-run hospital, but we could not take her as we had some family issues,” said the girl’s mother.