Chennai: No parent would want to see child die, but what could be better for my boy?

Chennai: As his bus rode into the darkness setting on the Grand Southern Trunk Road taking him home at Solatharam (30 km from Chidambaram) Monday evening, the only thought weighing heavy on Thavamani’s mind was he does not have to borrow money for the next trip to Chennai.

The benevolent divisional bench of the Madras High Court had earlier in the day ordered that the government provide the services of an ambulance to bring his 11-year-old son to the Omandurar multi-speciality hospital for examination by a panel of three specialists to determine his ‘Persistent Vegetative State’ (PVS) and report back to the court “at the earliest”.

The court will thereafter decide on Thavamani’s plea to permit the boy’s mercy killing. “We were mighty thrilled when Paavendhan was born, as our only son after two daughters. But our joy quickly evaporated into despair as the baby did not cry. The nurse said not to worry, some kids start crying a bit late but that did not happen. Soon the doctor told us there’s something wrong. That was 11 years ago,” says Thavamani in a phone interview while on his bus ride.

The anxious parents took the baby several times to the Chidambaram hospital, the nearest with a paediatric neuro speciality, but there was no improvement as Pavendhan suffered multiple seizures almost every day and was in a vegetative state for the rest of the time. The kid was two when the specialist finally wrote down the distressing diagnosis on the fat-soiled case file:

Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE).
The condition, medical journals would tell you, is “a type of brain damage that occurs when an infant’s brain doesn’t receive enough oxygen and blood”. It’s a dangerous condition and unless immediate medical intervention is done, the child could die or end up in permanent vegetative state. For a poor tailor in a village, advanced medical treatment for his HIE baby at the time of delivery was out of question.

With Pavendhan’s seizures getting more frequent and painful to witness, and the doctors ruling out cure, the family decided to give up the battle. “Fate was cruel to us, particularly to this child. But society was kind. Friends helped with loans whenever I asked and doctors were considerate. But how long can we carry on with borrowed kindness? How much more must our son suffer? He deserves to be released from this torturous prison”, says the distraught father, who has already run up a huge debt to meet the boy’s treatment.

Besides, the tailor’s income was dwindling due to his preoccupation with the hospitals and doctors, while his wife and two daughters were kept busy with his 87-year-old ailing mother.

The high court order now meant that a team of specialists will examine Pavendhan at Chennai’s Omandurar hospital and give its report when the court next sits on the case on October 4 to decide on the father’s euthanasia plea. “You can imagine the family’s trauma when the decision was taken and how painful it was when I signed those court papers. No parent would want to see his child die; but then, what could be better for my boy?”